


Boards and Daggers

by Formula_Tea



Series: Table Pins [2]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Gangsters, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of attempted suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Warnings May Change, murder investigation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 13:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 49,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Formula_Tea/pseuds/Formula_Tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The (not so) long awaited sequel to Table Pins. Set a few months after the end of Table Pins. Some people are managing to get their lives together and the events of the past few months seem to have been for the better. Others are struggling to cope with their new circumstances. The threat of war looms ominously over Elevency, but with both Rosberg and Räikkönen preoccupied, it might take a little more pushing to get the puppet masters what they want. Meanwhile, life goes on. And, as it does, the extremely long and somewhat descriptive chapter titles return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Rob and Felipe plan for a happy future, Hanna and Nico struggle to plan for a bleaker future, and Kimi doesn't think about the future much at all...

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this is better than the first part. I hope you enjoy this as much as the last.

Rob tapped his phone against his chin once he had hung up. He knew Felipe was watching him and was doing his best to hide the smile from him. He swallowed his excitement and shook his head, coming to sit quietly beside Felipe.

Felipe looked worriedly up at him. “What?”

Rob sighed and put his arm around Felipe, pulling the smaller man towards him until Felipe was resting his head against Rob’s chest. Felipe looked up at him, the worry in his eyes growing.

“What did they say?”

Rob just shook his head again, but he couldn’t keep his grin much longer.

“We’re good to go.”

“What?” Felipe jumped away from Rob to turn and look at him. “Really?”

“A week,” Rob said, letting his grin come through.

The beam on Felipe’s face practically split his head in two. He bounced across the sofa, hugged Rob so tight the taller man feared he might be split in two as well, but Rob held him back and beamed too because they were finally, _finally_ moving on. They were finally getting away from this mess.

“So we can phone the guy from the house now,” Felipe said, resting his chin on Rob’s chest so he could look up at him.

“You decided which house you want yet?” Rob asked, one of his hands automatically come to rest behind Felipe’s head.

Felipe had been the one looking at the houses for the past couple of months and, though he had dragged Rob to viewing after viewing and insisted on having his opinion, this was really Felipe’s project. It was Felipe who wanted the fresh start and, though Rob agreed they should have one, it was Felipe that needed one.

“Uh huh,” Felipe said. “The first one.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?” Rob said, grinning. He had no idea why Felipe had even bothered taking him to see the others when it was clear he’d fallen in love with the house in the quiet little town by the sea.

“Do you want to phone him up or should I?” Felipe asked. He still hadn’t pulled away from Rob and he wasn’t going to for a while either.

“I should,” Rob said. He was the one who was going to be paying for this – or his great aunt who had gifted him the enormous fortune in her will. “You go and get the number and I’ll phone him up.”

“Now?” Felipe asked.

“As soon as possible,” Rob said.

“Do not want to let you go,” Felipe said, snuggling against Rob and closing his eyes.

“That’s going to make things awkward,” Rob said, leaning down to kiss Felipe. “Go and get the number. You can hug me later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

 

Hanna could feel all eyes on her as she pushed the pram through the school gates, the playground full of other mothers and their disgusted looks. All aimed at her: the unfit mother who couldn’t keep her family together. She knew what they were all thinking. She shouldn’t even have Emily anymore. But what choice did she have? Sebastian _had_ to go and get himself run over, didn’t he? Maybe they thought Emily would be better off in foster care or something, and maybe they were right. At least, if anything happened again, Emily had that option open to her. The baby inside her didn’t even have that yet.

She’d kept it, the baby. Against her better judgement, she’d kept the baby. And she knew that was a stupid decision, she knew it was just putting the baby through even more trouble than it needed to go through. It would probably be better off dying now and not having to see what a useless waste of space it had for a mother, but she’d kept it.

It was part of Sebastian. And whilst he wasn’t really here at the moment, she couldn’t let the baby go.

“Hanna?”

Rob caught Hanna at the end of the playground, snapping her out of her thoughts. Hanna smiled weakly back, her eyes full of tiredness rather than happiness. The Brit just beamed back anyway before crouching in front of the pushchair to say hello to Emily. Emily giggled back, perfectly oblivious to everything.

“How are things?” Rob asked, looking up at Hanna from the floor.

“As good as ever,” Hanna said, doing her best to smile properly. Rob was trying. It was better than anybody else she knew was doing.

“Good,” Rob said, standing and following Emily as she made her way to the nursery doors. “Any news from Sebastian?” he asked.

Hanna knew he was just trying to be polite. He didn’t care for Sebastian, just that she was ok and wasn’t going to do anything stupid again, but it was nice to pretend. And, after all, hadn’t that been how she had been when it had been Felipe in hospital?

She shook her head, pushing the pram back and forth when they came to a stop. “Nothing.”

“No news is good news,” Rob said.

Hanna smiled again and nodded, and if it had been anybody else, she would have been annoyed.

“How are things going for you?” she asked, returning the politeness.

Rob sighed, happily. He knew he shouldn’t be this happy around Hanna when she was going through everything she was, but he really couldn’t help it. Everything, _finally_ , was perfect.

He nodded, trying to swallow the grin that was attempting to consume his face. “Good. Everything’s… good.”

“Glad to hear it,” Hanna said, falling back into an awkward silence. It wouldn’t last long. The nursery door would open and Emily would be sent toddling inside, and there would be nothing to stay for then.

“I should probably get back,” Rob said. He was still a little nervous about leaving Felipe on his own. He _had_ been given the all clear from the doctors a couple of weeks ago, but it still made Rob worry. “If you need me, phone, yeah?”

“I will,” Hanna promised, turning away from Rob so he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She needed him _now_. She needed him _all the time_. There was nobody else anymore, all the mothers at the school judging her, Sebastian out of the picture for the time being, and Kimi next to useless. Rob was the only one she had, but she couldn’t keep him to herself.

 

Jenson came down the stairs in the morning to find Nico curled up, asleep, on the sofa, the television still on quietly in the corner, and a laptop computer open in front of him. Jenson sighed, turning the TV off. He wasn’t surprised, or even disappointed. IT was just… things weren’t supposed to be like this…

He couldn’t remember the last time Nico had come to bed without getting up in the middle of the night. It had been months since Räikkönen had dumped the dying bar man on their door step, and Nico was still trying to find Toto to try to figure out what had really happened. There was no sign of him, and that was unlikely to come, but Nico wasn’t giving up.

Jenson gently shook his boyfriend awake, a smile on his lips.

“Morning, sleepy.”

“Shit, what time is it?”

“Nine,” Jenson said, gently. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, please, why aren’t you at work?” Nico asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Morning off,” Jenson said, heading into the kitchen to make the drinks. “It should be the entire day, but I’ve got a new kid starting this afternoon and I’ve got to show him the ropes.”

Nico smiled, watching through the door as Jenson made coffee. He liked hearing about Jenson’s life, about what was going on in the coffee shop and the random problems customers had. It made him feel more normal. For a few moments, he could pretend he didn’t have to deal with Räikkönen. He could pretend he was _normal_ , like Jenson. And he liked it.

“What’s his name?” Nico asked, still rubbing his face and trying to wake himself up.

“Max,” Jenson called back in from the kitchen. “Seems like a hard working kid, but he hasn’t got any experience. I’m not sure what to expect.”

“I am sure you will be able to teach him well,” Nico said, leaning a little to see what was taking the coffee so long.

“You put too much faith in me,” Jenson laughed. “No, he shouldn’t be so bad. Everyone likes a nice challenge.”

The Brit returned to the room with two mugs, which brightened Nico’s face a little.

“You know, you should really go to bed,” Jenson said, handing him one of the mugs.

“I’m fine,” Nico insisted, taking a sip before putting it on the floor beside him and waking up the laptop. “I can’t stop. What if-?”

“I thought Kevin was supposed to be working on Toto,” Jenson said, putting an arm around Nico and closing the lid of the laptop.

“He is,” Nico said. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do my part.”

“Have you come up with a plan?” Jenson asked. He hadn’t asked for a couple of weeks and maybe Nico’s answer would be different this time. With Sebastian in hospital and Räikkönen preoccupied, Nico had a head start in preparing for whatever war the Finn was trying to start. So far, he had made no use of it.

Silently, he shook his head. There was nothing he could do. He didn’t want another war. Things had been working perfectly fine until Lewis decided to hit Felipe Massa with a car…

“You’ll get there,” Jenson said, patting Nico on the back. “I know you will.”

 

_No, there’s no new news, Mr Raikkonen._

The words washed over Kimi. He didn’t really hear them. He never did. The nurses and doctors wondered in and out, doing whatever they needed to do to Sebastian and making notes on their little clip boards. Most of them didn’t pay Kimi much attention. He was there. He was always there. But his mind wasn’t in the same place and nobody had gotten conversation out of him.

Sometimes Dan came in. At first, he’d tried to only come in when Kimi wasn’t there, but that wasn’t often and, when Kimi didn’t react to his presence, he’d stopped minding.

Dan wasn’t here today though. The nurse had come in, spoken the usual phrase, and left. It was just the two of them.

Kimi watched Sebastian where he lay, motionless, for a couple of moments. He wanted to speak to him. They always said that he might be able to hear him, and Dan took that advice to heart and would chat away for hours to Sebastian’s lifeless body, but Kimi didn’t believe it. It was just said to keep spirits high.

“I…” Kimi shook his head. It was no use. He’d already told Sebastian everything he needed to tell him, in the faint hope that it might actually go in. Now there was nothing left. He didn’t know how someone could come and sit here every day for months and still have something to say.

“I love you.”

Nothing. No change to the beeps on the monitor, or to the gentle, rhythmic rise and fall of Sebastian’s chest. No change. There was never any change. He just had to hope one day there would be.


	2. In which Hanna makes a friend and Nico confronts Kimi

“You be a good boy, ok,” Rob warned, crouching down in front of Felipinho. The five year old grinned up at him, still holding onto his father’s hand.   
“You’re coming to the Fair later, aren’t you Rob?” Felipinho asked. He’d been talking about the art fair for weeks. They were going to have the children’s drawings displayed and the best one from each year was going to get a special award. He’d made no secret of the fact that he’d been practicing for weeks.   
“If I can make it, I’ll come,” Rob promised. He had some last minute things to do to sort out who was going to be in charge once he and Felipe left. It shouldn’t take that long, he figured.  
“You have to come,” Felipinho said. “Promise.”  
“I might not be able to,” Rob said, gently. “But Daddy is going to come, isn’t he?”  
“Yeah,” Felipe said. “Have to be there for when you get your special award, don’t I?”  
“Please, Rob,” Felipinho said, unexcited at the fact his father was coming. “You will try.”  
“I’ll try,” Rob said, ruffling Felipinho’s hair as he stood. “I think you should get going inside now, mate.”  
Felipinho rolled his eyes, readjusting his hair back to the way he wanted it to be.  
“See you later,” he said, getting onto his toes to kiss his father goodbye.  
“See you later,” Felipe said, watching his son, pull on Rob’s arm until the Brit was low enough for Felipinho to kiss his cheek.  
“See you later, Rob,” Felipinho said, happy nothing had to be a secret for much longer.  
“See you later.”

“Have you told Valtteri yet?” Felipe asked as they got into the car. He’d decided it was best to leave telling the staff to Rob, but wouldn’t quit nagging him until he’d done it. Rob had tried to insist that he didn’t need to tell anyone until it was all official and now it was all official, Felipe wanted to know what new excuse he would come up with.  
“Not yet,” Rob said, climbing into the car after Felipe (he still wouldn’t let the Brazilian drive after the accident).  
“Should tell him today,” Felipe said, quietly. He knew Rob felt like he was abandoning the Halfway Houses – abandoning them for him – and he didn’t want Valtteri making him feel any worse because it took him so long to tell the Finn.  
“I’ll tell him,” Rob assured him. “Leave it to me.”  
“Will need to tell him soon,” Felipe pointed out, watching Rob start the car. “Do not know how he is going to react.”  
“He’ll be fine,” Rob assured him. He had a plan to deal with Valtteri. He didn’t like just abandoning the Houses or the staff that worked there. They would still be put to the same use, he’d decided. His great aunt had left him enough to keep the houses running and for them to buy their own quiet little place by the sea. Things would run exactly as they had done at the Halfway Houses, he just wouldn’t be there to run them. And that was where Valtteri came in.  
“You know, you did not have to leave all this behind,” Felipe said, quietly, but he knew that wasn’t true. He’d given Rob a choice, plain and simple. Well, he hadn’t even given him that. He’d never wanted to make Rob chose, but Rob had done that anyway. They couldn’t go on like they had been, making Felipinho lie and trying desperately not to slip up. Something had had to change.  
“I’d rather leave this all behind than leave you,” Rob said, quietly. “It’ll be easy. I’ll explain to Valtteri. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“I’m going to the hospital,” Nico informed Jenson as his partner got ready to head to work. For the first time in days, Nico had made the effort to make himself presentable to the outside world and it almost looked like Jenson had the old Nico back, but he knew that would be too good to be true.  
“The hospital?” Jenson asked, turning up the collar on his coat. “Why do you need to go to the hospital?”  
He knew the answer to that. He was just hoping he could make Nico see how useless whatever his plan was before he did something stupid.  
“I need to speak to Räikkönen,” Nico said, as Jenson knew he would.  
“Nico,” Jenson tried, but the German just shook his head.   
“Do you know what has happened because of Alonso’s death?” Nico asked. “Nothing. Nothing has happened. A man has died and nobody is doing anything about it. We know who has done it, but we can’t do anything, because we’re too scared about what Räikkönen’s going to do next. Maybe there’s a chance… Sebastian’s in hospital. Maybe that’s made him see sense.”  
“And maybe it hasn’t,” Jenson said. He didn’t know how bad it could be for Nico to go to the hospital to visit Räikkönen, but he didn’t want to find out. This way, there would be no surprises.  
“Something has to happen,” Nico said. “He is waiting to see what I will do.”  
“So keep him waiting,” Jenson said. “You’re finding Toto, aren’t you? Wait until you know where everyone is before you do something.”  
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Nico snapped, glaring at Jenson and making him freeze. He hadn’t seen the German so angry in a long time.  
“Fine,” Jenson said, holding up his hands. It was no good. Nico could sort his own messes out, Jenson knew that. He just wished he didn’t have to. “I’m going to work. I’ll see you later.”

Hanna was trying. She was really trying. She was sure, when she walked into the health centre, nobody could tell what was really going on inside her own head, or her home. She looked presentable. Happy. She was sure of it.   
None of the women in the little community room knew her. They smiled at her when she walked in, nodding in greeting to her. Hanna nodded back, standing awkwardly by the door until she found a spare seat in the circle of chairs. She’d come a little early, but it looked like all of the other mothers to be had thought the same.  
“Hello,” the woman to her right said with a warm smile.  
“Hello,” Hanna squeaked, a little nervous. She’d never done anything like this when she was pregnant with Emily, and look how well that had worked out. “Hanna,” she said, offering her hand to shake.  
The woman’s smile grew and she took Hanna’s hand warmly.  
“How far gone?” the woman asked, not offering her own name.   
“A couple of months,” Hanna said, looking down at her stomach. She still wasn’t showing, but it had taken a while for her to show with Emily as well. She wasn’t worried. Not about that, at least. “Yourself?”  
“Not quite as long,” the woman said, quietly. “Haven’t seen you here before though?”  
“No,” Hanna said. “First time. I want to… I want to do it right this time.”  
“This time?” the woman asked, curiously.  
Hanna nodded, looking back up at her new friend. “I’ve another. A little girl. She’s at nursery at the moment. And… and you?”  
It was more of a conversation than she’d had with anybody other than Rob since she’d found out about the new baby, and she was a little surprised she still remembered how to do it.  
The woman smiled weakly and looked down at her feet.  
“I had a little boy, but I lost him.”  
“Oh my gosh.” No. No, Hanna did not remember how to have a conversation. Not one that didn’t offend anybody, anyway. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”  
“No, it’s ok,” the woman said, her smile growing a little when she looked up at Hanna. “It was a long time ago. I’m ok.”  
The door opened again and the host came in, beaming.   
“Good morning ladies. Sorry I’m a little late…”

Nico managed to find his way through the now too familiar hospital to where Kimi was sat at Sebastian’s side without help from the nurses. It just felt like they were going around in circles. No sooner had they solved the problem of one innocent person in a hospital bed over a drunk driver had another one appeared. Nico didn’t like it. The last time, the so called accident had all been part of some bigger scheme, or as far as he knew. This time…   
No, Kimi wouldn’t let anyone working for him put Sebastian in this state. And, even if he did, he wouldn’t have been in this state himself.  
The Finn didn’t look up when Nico walked in. Nico hadn’t come to visit Sebastian yet and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Sebastian, of course, just seemed to be sleeping. The bruises and cuts from the accident had healed long ago and it didn’t look like there was anything wrong with him.   
“Kimi?”  
Kimi blinked and looked up at Nico, genuinely surprised to find the German stood there. It took him a couple of moments to speak, by which point Nico had crossed the room and sat down beside him.  
“What’s happened?” Kimi asked.  
“Nothing,” Nico said. It was the truth. Nothing had happened since he’d found Fernando Alonso dying on his doorstep and he didn’t like it. It felt like they were all on the edge of something, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. He was done waiting. “We need to talk.”  
“Not now, Nico,” Kimi said, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if he was afraid he might wake Sebastian.  
“Yes now,” Nico said, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this confident speaking to Kimi and it felt good. “We cannot just sit and not do anything. A man is dead. Another is lying in hospital.”  
“What happened to Sebastian had nothing to do with us,” Kimi said, his eyes back on the bed. What happened to Sebastian was an accident or… No, it was definitely an accident. Something nobody had meant to happen.  
“That still does not answer for the dead man,” Nico hissed. “The man you killed.”  
“What?”  
Kimi blinked stupidly again and turned to Nico. The confusion on his face surprised Nico a little. He couldn’t have forgotten. Yes, it had been months ago, but it was the first death in this mess and Nico was sure it would have at least stuck out a little in the Finn’s memory. Or maybe he was just surprised Nico hadn’t already solved that problem.  
“Alonso?” Nico prompted, assuming the first explanation.   
Kimi just blinked again, frustrating Nico a little.  
“I killed Alonso?” Kimi asked. “Fernando Alonso?”  
“Yes,” Nico hissed. “You or someone who works for you. Do not tell me otherwise. He told me.”  
“He told you?” Kimi said. “Are you sure you are alright, Nico?”  
“Do not speak to me like an idiot,” Nico said. He wasn’t sure what game Kimi was playing with him, but he wasn’t going along with it. “You had somebody kill Alonso and then leave him dying on my doorstep.”  
“I haven’t had anybody killed,” Kimi said. “When did this happen?”  
This couldn’t be happening. Kimi knew he had been letting things slip. Whilst he had been sitting her with Sebastian, he’d been out of the loop. Other people were dealing with any problems that came up. He had his own to sort out, ones he couldn’t really do anything about but he wasn’t prepared to give up on.  
“Months ago,” Nico said, the confusion clear in his voice. There was no way Kimi didn’t know about this, but he couldn’t figure out what Kimi was trying to accomplish by pretending that was the case. Unless this was about convincing Nico it hadn’t been him, but he wasn’t going to fall for that. Not again. “The same night this did, I think.”  
Kimi tried to think back to the night. He didn’t remember much of it. He’d been drunk, and angry at Sebastian, though he couldn’t remember why anymore. He vaguely remembered Lewis coming in with Sebastian, covered in his blood. But that was… that was it.  
He shook his head. “That wasn’t my doing, Nico.”  
“Then who do you think it was?” Nico snapped. “I am willing to accept you did it but have changed your mind, Kimi. I understand that things have changed and maybe you want to take back the attack. We can work on this together. But a man has died. Someone needs to take responsibility for that.”  
“I did not do it,” Kimi said, sternly. “This happened months ago and you did not figure that out. Do you not think I was busy that night?”  
“Alibi,” Nico said, with a shrug. He knew it had been Kimi. Why would Alonso say so if it hadn’t been?   
“Believe what you want, Nico, but I did not do it,” Kimi said. “And I do not have time for your games. Not now.”  
Nico gulped, looking between Sebastian and Kimi. If it was someone else, he was going to have to find out who. He was going to have to sort out this mess by himself, because there was no way Kimi was going to be any help in that. Well, this was what he wanted, wasn’t it? This was what all these petty arguments were about. Suddenly, Nico wasn’t so sure this was a good idea.


	3. In which there’s a little trouble in the coffee shop, Rob’s still scared, and Kimi has no idea what’s going on

“That wasn’t so bad,” Hanna said with a sigh as the other mothers to be stood at the end of the session. She huffed a laugh, happy she’d managed to make it through the session.

“You were expecting something else?” the woman beside her asked.

“I didn’t meant to say that aloud,” Hanna said, blushing a little. She didn’t really mind that much. She was more relieved than anything. It was over, she’d survived, and she’d _enjoyed_ it.

“It’s alright,” the woman said with a laugh. “The first time is always a little scary. Do you want to get coffee?”

Hanna glanced down at her watch. She still had a couple of hours before she had to go and pick up Emily.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, standing and shaking her legs a little, stiff from sitting for so long. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh, of course,” the woman smiled, linking her arm through Hanna’s as they made their way out of the community centre. “Raffaela.”

“That’s an unusual name,” Hanna mused. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The woman’s accent had been bugging her throughout the meeting, but she hadn’t really wanted to ask. Raffaela smiled brightly, a smile Hanna vaguely recognised.

“Brazil,” she said. “And you? Do not really sound English.”

“Moved here from Germany with Emily’s dad before she was born,” Hanna said. “Emily, my daughter. Brazil, though. It’s a pretty long distance. My friend’s partner’s from Brazil.”

“Are they?” Raffaela asked, curiously. “Is not so uncommon then?”

“I guess not,” Hanna said, smiling back and letting her new friend lead her into the coffee shop.

 

Jenson was watching the new boy, Max, work from a table in the corner, where he had a good view of the entire shop. He didn’t seem to be doing too badly: a little slow on the till, but he was sure it wasn’t anything that a little bit of practice wouldn’t solve. Yes, he had only hired the teenager because he owed the boy’s father a favour, but it didn’t look like this was going to work out too badly for him, either.

Jenson watched the two women walk into the shop, nodding to Hanna when she caught his eye for a moment. She smiled back before hurrying to the counter with her friend and Jenson turned his attention to Max.

Nico hadn’t phoned him yet, and he guessed that was a good thing. No news was good news, after all. Maybe he was right, and Räikkönen had changed since the accident. He still didn’t believe Räikkönen would be attracted to someone like Sebastian, but that was what the German had told Nico before this whole mess had become out of hand, and looking at how Räikkönen had reacted Jenson was inclined to believe him. He’d thought he heard all the gossip working here, but apparently not.

There was a loud crash and Jenson was snapped out of his thoughts for long enough to see the two women leaning over the counter at something on the floor behind it. He rushed over as Max pulled himself up from the floor, scolding hot coffee drenching his arm.

“Go and get yourself cleaned up,” Jenson instructed him, patting the teenager on the back. “And make sure you use plenty of cold water on your arm.”

“I’ll get a mop and clean that up,” Max mumbled.

“No, it’s fine,” Jenson insisted. “You get yourself sorted out. Carlos can clean this up.”

Max nodded silently, looking away when Carlos, his co-worker, gave his an apologetic smile. Jenson sighed and turned to Hanna and her friend.

“What was it you wanted again?” he asked with a smile.

 

“Was thinking,” Felipe said, leaning against Rob as he cooked lunch. “Are not going to be able to take all the furniture down to the new house with us, are we?”

“We’ll hire a van,” Rob said. “I can take that, and you can take Felipinho in the car.”

“Are trusting me to drive?” Felipe asked, a little surprised. Rob had barely trusted him to do anything by himself since he’d come out of hospital. No matter how many times he tried to convince Rob he was perfectly ok, he didn’t believe him.

Rob paused, turning the eggs over again before resting the spatula on the edge of the frying pan and turning to face Felipe properly. His thumb ran over the fading scar on the Brazilian’s forehead that the “accident” had caused. Fading, but still there, just like the damage.

“You’re right,” Rob said. “I’ll head down a couple of days before and get it all sorted, then we’ll drive down together.”

“I can drive, Rob,” Felipe insisted, pressing his cheek against Rob’s hand. “Am fine. Look at me.”

“I know,” Rob said, quietly. “But I’m still scared. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Would have to try harder than that to lose me,” Felipe said, grinning.

“Felipe, I’m being serious,” Rob said. “You, Felipinho, this place. You’re my entire world and I thought I was going to lose a big part of that. And I’m going to make sure that that is never going to happen again.”

“Cannot wrap me up in cotton wool,” Felipe said. “Need to trust me.”

“I do,” Rob said, but he knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t just Felipe he didn’t trust. It was everything. He knew himself. He could control himself. He could make sure he was being as careful as possible and it was the greatest chance he had of making sure no harm came of Felipe or Felipinho. Anything else, he had no control over.

He shook his head and turned back to the eggs, leaving Felipe to sigh and sit at the small table. Rob smiled and tutted at him gently, hoping he would be able to forget about all this someday, but it wasn’t going to be any time soon.

“Is Valtteri in?” Felipe asked as Rob set the plates of food down.

“Yeah,” Rob said. “There’s a new family coming in tomorrow. He’s cleaning up for them.”

“Have not spoken to him yet,” Felipe said.

“I will,” Rob insisted. “Felipe, I can handle this.”

“Alright,” Felipe said, holding up his hands before digging into his food. He knew that, of course. He knew Rob would have every little detail planned out. But he didn’t want to just brush Valtteri aside. In all the chaos, Rob might have forgotten everything the Finn had done for them, not just with the Houses, but with everything. Felipe really didn’t want them parting on bad company.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Rob said, a smile on his face that was supposed to be reassuring.

 

_“Mr Raikkonen? I think… Fuck…”_

What he hated more than anything else was that he couldn’t remember. The images were still blurred in his head and Kimi wasn’t entirely sure if they were memories or things he’d imagined to fill in the gaps.

There was a bottle, of few bottles. And Lewis, covered in blood. Sebastian’s blood.

_“I don’t know, but I think he got hit by a car or something.”_

Lewis had come to him. The Brit had probably known Kimi would be angry and, if he hadn’t been so bloody drunk, he would have taken it out on him, but Lewis still came to him. Lewis still tried to do what was right for Sebastian and what did Kimi do?

_“Get him out. Get him out of my house.”_

He looked down at Sebastian now. Maybe if he hadn’t been so drunk, he could have helped. They could have gotten him to the hospital sooner. He could be awake by now.

If he had just listened to Sebastian when he had tried to tell him about Hanna…

God, if he had the chance to change the last half a year of his life, Kimi would have jumped at it.

And now there was this. Alonso was dead and someone – apparently Alonso – was telling him it was Kimi’s fault. And the worst part was, it could have been. Kimi was certain – fairly sure, at least – he hadn’t sent the orders for this to happen. But he just couldn’t remember.

 

“How old is Emily?” Raffaela asked.

“Two,” Hanna said. “She’ll be three soon.”

“They must be so cute when they’re that age,” Raffaela said, still smiling.

“Little nightmares,” Hanna said. “As soon as they get old enough to walk, that’s it. They’re just little trouble makers. My friend’s partner’s son’s the same. A couple of months ago, Emily threw herself in the pond, trying to feed the ducks. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Well…”

That was only the beginning. That was the moment she realised she wasn’t fit to be a single parent, and it had all spiralled downhill from there.

“It must have been terrifying,” Raffaela agreed, watching Hanna drink her coffee.

“No harm done in the end,” Hanna said, quietly. She didn’t really feel comfortable talking about it. Or anything that had happened afterwards. That was part of the past, and she was supposed to but putting that behind her. Why she kept bringing it up, she didn’t know.

“That’s good to hear,” Raffaela said. “When do you have to pick her up from nursery?”

“Another hour or so,” Hanna said. Another hour or so and then she would have to pretend to be a responsible adult again. “It was easier when her father was around.”

“He isn’t?” Raffaela asked, surprised.

Hanna shook her head, mentally scolding herself for bringing Sebastian up.

“That’s a shame,” Raffaela said, quietly. “Have friends to help you out though? The baby’s father.”

“Same man,” Hanna said, quietly.

“He left you whilst you were pregnant?” Raffaela asked, shocked. “Have known men to do some pretty horrible things, but that is awful.”

“It wasn’t really his choice,” Hanna said. “It does not matter. I’m fine. And you? Have spoken so much about me, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Raffaela assured her. “Is good to hear that I am not the only one to have a disaster of a life.”

She smiled, drinking her tea and making it as clear as possible she didn’t want to talk about what had happened in her life to back up that comment. Hanna smiled back, knowing the feeling but not knowing how to fill the uncomfortable silence.

“Thought of any names?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“For baby?” Hanna said. “I don’t like calling it bump, but I don’t have any name ideas. Sebastian was always better at that.”

“No,” Raffaela said, quietly. “I haven’t.”

“We should come up with some together,” Hanna suggested. “My friend says, if it’s a boy, I’m to name it after him. Rob Vettel. I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Hmmm. It does not really sound right,” Raffaela said. “You’re _friend_. You talk about him a lot.”

“Yeah,” Hanna said, blushing and looking down at her coffee. “He helped us out of a lot of shit before. And now, I guess. I don’t really know what I’d do without him.”

“And he’s just… just a friend?”

“Of course,” Hanna said. She wasn’t going to let her new friend think anything else. It had been bad enough when Sebastian had thought it, even if it was only for a short while. “I’m not a home wrecker.”

“But if he were not with his partner?” Raffaela asked.

“No,” Hanna said, blushing even more now. “No, Rob and I are just friends.”

“Ah,” Raffaela said, though the smile on her face said she didn’t believe her. Hanna didn’t really blame her.


	4. In which Felipe buys a candle holder and Nico is surprised to see a familiar face

“Come on Emily.”

It was no good. The toddler did _not_ want to go in her pushchair and she was going to have a screaming child on her hands in about fifteen seconds.

“We could have been home by now, Emily,” Hanna said with a sigh. “Right. Stop squirming, please. Stop squirming or no ice cream.”

“Don’t want is cream.”

Hanna shut her eyes and took a deep breath before clipping the straps of Emily’s push chair shut and standing.

“Mummy? Mummy! Don’t _want_ is cream!”

“Then you won’t have one,” Hanna sighed, ignoring the other mothers watching her push the push chair out of the school gates.

Going back to the real world always hit hard, but it seemed to hit harder than ever today. She’d been enjoying herself with her new friend and leaving her had not been enjoyable. She knew she shouldn’t get attached. She barely knew the woman, and treating her like she treated Rob was only going to panic her and make her run. She needed friends, not crutches.

At some point on the walk home, Emily had screamed herself to sleep, and that was something to be thankful for, at least. Hanna fumbled with the front door to the house, trying to get it open as quietly as possible, and not smash it into the wall behind it like she usually did. Thankfully, Emily slept through the inevitable collision, and Hanna left the push chair in the hall.

“Are you going to be this mardy, bump?” she asked, quietly, looking down at her stomach. She was sure there was a slight bump now, that when she flattened her shirt down she could see it, but it was only slight. Too slight. She was far further gone than when a bump had started showing with Emily. But then, she hadn’t almost drunk herself to death when she was pregnant with Emily.

No, it was ok. The midwife had said there was nothing to worry about at her last scan, hadn’t he? Bump was fine. She was fine. Everything was going to be ok.

 

All the parents were there. It was too busy, and Felipinho had to hold onto his father’s hand tightly so neither of them got separated and lost. It didn’t take a genius to work out Felipinho was sulking. Felipe had tried to explain that Rob was still working, and that he was going to come at the end if he could make it, but Felipinho wasn’t listening, and maybe Rob was right about him having selective hearing.

“The candle holders are very good,” Felipe said, looking over one of the stalls. “Which one is yours?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Felipinho said with a sniff that made him sound very sorry for himself.

“Yes it does. I want to buy it,” Felipe said. “Is it the red one?”

“Don’t want you to buy it,” Felipinho said. He didn’t even want to be holding onto his father’s hand, but he knew better than to let go when there was lots of people about. He wanted Rob here. Rob had promised he would come. Or he promised he would _try_ to come.

“Don’t be silly, Pea,” Felipe tried, but Felipinho shook his head. “Well, what is going to hold a candle now, if I do not get your candle holder?”

“We don’t even have candles,” Felipinho said.

Felipe rolled his eyes and picked Felipinho up so he was sat on his hip. If Rob were here, he’d tell him off for that and the way he groaned when he stood up would definitely not impress the Brit, but he paid it no attention.

“If I buy your candle holder, I will get a candle on the way home and we will light it tonight, yeah?”

He didn’t know what had gotten into Felipinho recently. He’d become incredibly clingy with Rob over the past month or so and Felipe had no idea why. It was as if, as soon as he’d gotten better, Felipinho wanted nothing to do with him. It was _always_ Rob, and neither Felipe nor Rob could see any reason why this was the case, but it was.

“Want Rob,” Felipinho sniffed.

“He will be here soon,” Felipe said. “Come on. We will surprise him with the candle holder, yeah? I bet he will be very impressed with it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Felipe said, hoping he was getting somewhere.

A faint smile flickered onto Felipinho’s face and he pointed to his own candle holder – the red one, of course – and Felipe brought it, accepting the little paper bag with a small sigh.

“Where are we going to go now then?” Felipe asked.

 

“I’ll take this one, Max,” Jenson said, patting Max on the back. “You go and take a break.”

“Are you sure?” Max asked. All the teenager felt like he had done today was make a mess and take breaks.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Jenson insisted.

Nico didn’t look too happy when he approached the till. Jenson gave him a sympathetic smile, handing his boyfriend his usual drink and sliding along the counter with him.

“How did it go?” Jenson asked, quietly.

Nico shook his head. “Kimi said he did not know what I was talking about. He said it wasn’t him who sent Alonso to our doorstep. Said he didn’t know anything about it.”

“How can he know nothing about it?” Jenson asked. “Who else could have done this? It had to be him.”

Nico shrugged. “Thought it was him who attacked Lewis before, didn’t I?” he said. He shook his head, turning his attention to his coffee.

“And it was,” Jenson said. “In a way. He didn’t know about it then, either. Did he?”

“I just don’t understand it,” Nico said. “Do I believe him or not? I cannot waste time looking for this other person if it is Kimi. But I cannot _not_ look for them. You know?”

“Have you told Kevin?” Jenson asked.

“I cannot rely on him all the time, Jenson.” Sometimes it felt like he just got Kevin to do everything. The Dane was probably the most helpful person Nico knew, but _he_ was in charge, and he barely had any input anymore.

“But surely he needs to know,” Jenson said. “Get him to see if there’s anyone else you should be suspicious of or something and work on Kimi yourself. Or something. I don’t know.”

He stood back up, going to the counter to serve another customer. Nico rolled his eyes, taking out his phone. Jenson was right. Of course he was right.

“Max, could you go and clear the tables please?” Jenson asked, calling back to the teenager who was coming out of the break room.

Nico looked up before he could finish his message to Kevin, watching Max pass him to go and do as he was told. Max. Max Verstappen.

 

“It’s not fair. She cheated.”

“Did not!”

“Yeah. Because your mummy’s a dinner lady. That’s why you won.”

“Felipinho. I am sure Lilly did not cheat.”

“She _did_ ,” Felipinho whined, curling into his father. “She did. My drawing was much better than hers.”

“It does not matter,” Felipe said. Felipinho was tired and they were going to have to get going soon. He smiled apologetically at the little girl’s mother for Felipinho’s outburst. “Let’s get you home, yeah.”

“But… but Rob was supposed to come,” Felipinho said, wiping his eyes. “Need to show him my candle holder.”

“We can show him when we get home, can’t we,” Felipe said.

“Wanted to show him here,” Felipinho whined.

“I know you did,” Felipe said, gently, rubbing Felipinho’s back and hoping he might get the child to go to sleep. “But you can tell him at home. Maybe we surprise him with the candle inside as well, yes?”

“It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?”

“Rob!”

Felipinho practically leapt out of Felipe’s arms towards Rob. The Brit grinned, catching him just before he went airborne.

“Knew you would come! See Daddy?”

“Yes, I see,” Felipe said, not bothering to point out that he had been the one telling Felipinho that Rob would come.

“Daddy brought my candle holder,” Felipinho said, turning back to his father. “I can show him now?”

“Yes, wait a second,” Felipe said, trying to find the paper bag in the half a dozen carrier bags he was carrying.

“You can find it on the way to the car, yeah?” Rob said, smiling. He began leading the way back to the car. “Were you a good boy for Daddy?”

“Uh huh.”

“He has been a nightmare,” Felipe said, still searching through the bags. “Do not know what has gotten into him.”

“Ah, he’ll be better when… you know…”

They’d decided it was better to not tell Felipinho about them moving. He would only get over excited and they’d both figured it would be a better idea if it came as a surprise to him.

“You think?” Felipe asked, pulling the candle holder from the carrier bag. “Here.”

“Wow,” Rob said, turning the holder around in his hand. “Did you make this?”

“Uh huh,” Felipinho said, proudly. “Look. It’s red. That’s the best colour.”

“Yeah,” Rob said. “This is great. We’ll have to find space for it on the mantel piece when we get home.” He fell to a stop, waiting for Felipe to catch up with him. “Yeah. I’ll be around more. He’ll stop being so fussy.”

“Hope you are right,” Felipe said. He didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to go on like this.

 

“What is he doing here?” Nico hissed when Jenson returned after serving the customer.

“Who?” Jenson asked, looking around. He couldn’t see anybody in the café that would cause that kind of reaction.

“Verstappen,” Nico said.

“Oh,” Jenson said, watching the new member of his team pile cups and saucers onto a tray. “Working.”

“He is your new employee?” Nico said.

“Yeah,” Jenson said. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Nico. The German had more important things to be dealing with than who he hired to make coffee in his shop. “What’s the matter?”

“Why is he _here_?” Nico asked. If Max Verstappen was in Elevency, it wasn’t too bad to assume his father was here too, and that was _not_ a good thing.

Jenson just shrugged. “His dad said he needed a job. I owed his dad a favour. Nico, what’s the matter?”

“What do you owe Jos Verstappen a favour for?” Nico asked, staring at his boyfriend with wide eyes.

“He leant me some money to get this place open, didn’t he?” Jenson said. “That kind of money doesn’t come from no where, Nico. It’s alright, I’ve paid him back, don’t worry about that.”

Nico stared at him, not sure he could believe what he was hearing. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was important,” Jenson said, a little confused as to why it was such a big deal. “It’s just money, Nico, and it’s all paid back now anyway.”

“But _Jos_ _Verstappen_ , Jenson?” Nico hissed. His boyfriend had to know how much trouble that was going to cause if the elder Verstappen was following his son into Elevency.

“Yeah?” Jenson said, clearly not understanding how much trouble this was going to cause. “He had money. Nico, are you alright?”

Nico shook his head. He didn’t need this right now. He didn’t need this ever, but he really didn’t need it now. He couldn’t deal with Jos Verstappen and Räikkönen at the same time.

Max brought the tray of empty cups to the counter, smiling a little at how well he had done.

“Will talk to you about it later,” Nico said.


	5. In which Felipinho tells Rob about the bad man, Nico is given something else to worry about, and Kimi decides to do something

“But the reading book is boring,” Felipinho complained, bouncing onto the sofa beside Rob. The news was on the television, playing in the background whist Rob went through the usual bed time routine of trying to get Felipinho to read his reading book and the five year old refusing stubbornly.

“The sooner you read it, the sooner you can start a better one,” Rob said, unfolding the reading diary and handing Felipinho the book.

Felipinho didn’t even look at the book, watching the television with a curious look on his face. Rob tapped the book, grinning at the expression on Felipinho’s face. He looked so much like his father some days it was a little scary.

“Come on,” Rob encouraged.

“It’s Daddy’s friend,” Felipinho said, still watching the TV. “The one the bad man shot.”

Rob frowned, looking up at the television just in time to see the image of Alonso before the screen flicked back to the news room.

“Is he ok?” Felipinho asked. “He was a good person. I hope he’s ok.”

“Hang on a second, mate,” Rob said, standing to search for the remote control. “Why don’t you go and find Daddy and get him to do your book with you.”

“Want you to do it,” Felipinho whined.

“I know,” Rob said. “We’ll do it tomorrow, yeah? Go and find Daddy.”

Felipinho huffed, but did as he was told, taking his reading book and diary with him to find his father. Rob turned the volume on the television up, hoping he hadn’t missed whatever they were talking about that concerned Alonso.

_“…and if you do have any information concerning anything suspicious on the night Mr Alonso died, contact the police immediately.”_

 

“Are you going to tell me what this is about, Nico, or do I have to guess?”

Jenson still had no idea why his boyfriend was being so off about him. This couldn’t be because he’d borrowed money without telling him, could it? That was years ago, before they’d even known each other. He was pretty sure Nico had done a fair few things in his life he was keeping from Jenson.

“Jos Verstappen,” Nico said.

“Yes, darling, I got that bit,” Jenson said. “What about him?”

“Is he back in Elevency?” Nico asked. He looked up at Jenson. Where had he been the last time Verstappen had made an appearance? Nico had only been a kid himself, but he remembered how long those nights had been for his father, how worried he had been, not even knowing what was really going on.

Jenson shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, where is his son staying?” Nico asked.

“He’s at the university,” Jenson said. “He’s staying there, I guess. Nico, what is wrong?”

“If Jos Verstappen is trying to get Elevency…”

“Why would he be doing that?” Jenson said, laughing a little until he realised how serious Nico was being and stopped. “Nico?”

“Tried to before,” Nico said. “And now is the perfect time, isn’t it? When Kimi and I are busy? He thinks he can just walk in here and take it.”

“His son has a job at a coffee shop. He’s not exactly invaded Poland, Nico,” Jenson said, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend and nuzzling his nose against the shorter man’s neck. “You have enough to worry about. Don’t worry about this until you need to.”

“But…”

“Nico,” Jenson scolded gently. “Focus on finding out what happened to Alonso, yeah? I’ll talk to Max if you want. See what his dad’s up to. But I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”

Nico sighed and stopped squirming to get out of Jenson’s hold. He leaned back into the Brit for a couple of moments, closing his eyes and focusing on the way Jenson’s breath brushed against his neck, only for Jenson to pull away a few moments later.

“You’re making dinner,” he said, gleefully.

Nico rolled his eyes, but smiled as he watched the Brit rush up the stairs. Pretending things were ok wasn’t going to solve anything, but it helped.

 

When Felipe came downstairs, Rob snapped the laptop shut, hoping it hadn’t been too quick to cause suspicion. If it had, Felipe wasn’t showing it, smiling sadly up at him as he came into the living room.

“Managed to get through the reading book,” Felipe said. “But he wants you to read him his story.”

“Of course he does,” Rob said, standing and kicking the laptop under the sofa. Felipe stopped him from heading up the stairs, blocking his exit and standing on his toes to kiss him.

“Know I love you, don’t you?” Felipe said, quietly, looking up at Rob with enormous brown eyes.

“Of course,” Rob said, gently, rubbing the hair at the base of Felipe’s neck gently. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Felipe shrugged. “Wanted to make sure. Do not want to fall into one of those couples that forget why they are together.”

“Now how can I forget when you look at me like that?” Rob asked, kissing away the pout Felipe had on his face. “Are you ok?”

Felipe nodded, stepping back a little to let Rob through to go upstairs.

“You’re not… you’re not having second thoughts about moving away, are you?” Rob asked.

“No,” Felipe said. “”Think moving away is perfect. Perfect for us. Perfect for our family. Just…”

“Just what?” Rob prompted. 

“Just wanted you to know I love you,” Felipe said again, smiling.

“You better not be ill,” Rob laughed, kissing Felipe on the forehead before heading up stairs to read Felipinho his bedtime story.

 

“Hi,” Dan said, cheerfully, sitting opposite Kimi. Kimi didn’t know how he could always be so cheerful, even now. He had the same smile on his face that Kimi had wanted to punch when it had first made a reappearance but, now, he was beginning to not mind it so much.

Kimi only acknowledged Dan’s presence with a small nod, but Dan didn’t expect anything more.

“Afternoon Seb,” Dan continued. “Dany told me to tell you that your guys won last night. I don’t know who your guys are. I guess he thought you would know. But yeah, that seemed pretty important, so I guessed I should tell you about that first…”

Kimi listened to the endless drivel that came out of the Australian’s mouth, watching Sebastian’s face to see if his boyfriend gave any reaction. There was nothing. There never was. It was pointless, and he got the feeling Dan knew it was pointless as well but, if this was the Australian’s way of coping, he couldn’t really take that away.

“Hanna’s doing alright,” Dan said, pretty much out of the blue. “I mean, I haven’t seen her. But I saw Rob and he’s seen her and he says she’s ok. She says she’s still looking for baby names. I said she should call the baby Dan if it’s a boy because, you know, all people who are called Dan are awesome, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t know if she’d like that idea or not. No idea if it’s a girl or a boy yet.”

“She doesn’t know?” Kimi asked, silencing Dan instantly.

Dan looked up at him, surprised to find Kimi’s eyes on him. Kimi had never reacted to him being in the room, never mind anything he said. 

He shook his head.

“I thought she could find out by now.”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in a while.”

“Is there anything wrong?” Kimi asked. He should know. He was going to be the baby’s step father and he was sure Sebastian would be much more interested in how the baby was doing than whether some football team won.

“I don’t think so,” Dan said. “You would have to ask Hanna. Or Rob.”

Kimi nodded. That was exactly what he was going to do. It was time he actually started to get something done, and maybe dealing with Hanna and the baby would put him in the right frame of mind to deal with the rest of the problems.

“Will you sit with him tomorrow?” he asked.

“Why?” Dan asked, confused. 

“I need to deal with some things,” Kimi said. “But I cannot leave him on his own. Will you stay with him?”

“Er, yeah, sure,” Dan said, still a little confused. It wasn’t as if Sebastian was going to be bored alone, or like Kimi did anything when he was there, but Dan couldn’t see any harm in staying a little longer than usual.

Kimi just nodded, happy that Sebastian was taken care of. Nobody would be taking him away from him or using him in some game. Now he just had to worry about getting some real work done.

 

“The end,” Felipinho said happily, watching Rob close the book. 

“The end,” Rob repeated. He wiped the five year old’s hair out of his eyes and smiled sadly, knowing what he was going to have to ask next but not wanting to. “Felipinho, you know… you know the night you had to go away with the lady.”

Felipinho was suddenly wide awake. He sat up, his mouth already moving before he’d thought of something to say. He wasn’t going away with the lady. He _couldn’t_ go away with the lady.

“No, it’s ok,” Rob said, gently. “It’s ok. She’s gone, Pea. She’s gone and she’s never coming back. I just need you to remember that night, ok? When you saw Daddy’s friend?”

Felipinho fell back against his pillow, relieved. Then he remembered he’d seen Daddy’s friend on the news. He remembered the day when he had run away from the lady and bumped into Daddy’s friend and the bad man. It wasn’t a good day.

“Yeah?”

“You said a bad man shot him,” Rob said. He remembered now. He remembered Felipinho running towards him, sobbing and telling him about the bad man and the gun, but he hadn’t really listened. He’d just been so relieved to have the child back, nothing else had mattered. And now Fernando was dead and he could have done something. Maybe he could have gotten help for him sooner or something. He could still be alive if Rob hadn’t been so stupid.

“Uh huh,” Felipinho said. “Is Daddy’s friend ok?”

“Yeah,” Rob lied. “Yeah, he’s fine. But the police are looking for who shot him. They’re looking for the bad man.”

“They have to catch him,” Felipinho said. 

“Yeah,” Rob said, nodding along. “Do you know what the bad man looked like? I think it would really help a lot.”

Felipinho tried to think back to the night. To Daddy’s friend cleaning up his face. The bad man had come… with a cloth, he thought, before Daddy’s friend had put him in the car.

“He was a black man,” Felipinho said, trying to remember. “He had poofy hair and a nasty smile. He wasn’t very nice.”

“Right,” Rob said. He knew who that sounded like, but there was a chance – a big chance – that was because the person Rob had in mind was already firmly in his bad books. “Do you remember anything else?”

Felipinho thought for a couple of seconds, then shook his head. “It was dark and I was scared. I don’t remember. They will catch him though, won’t they Rob?”

“Yeah,” Rob said, gently. “Of course they will mate. Now, you need to be a big boy and do something very important for me, ok?”

“What?”

“I need you to not tell Daddy about this,” Rob said.

“Why?”

Good question. 

“Because,” Rob said, unhelpfully. “Daddy’s friend was hurt, wasn’t he? And he’s ok, but it will make Daddy sad to find out he was hurt, so we mustn’t tell him.”

Felipinho nodded, that made sense. When Daddy had been hurt, Rob had been sad. And he didn’t want anybody to be sad ever again.

“Good,” Rob said. “Such a good boy. Good night.”

“Good night Rob.”


	6. In which Hanna's new friend is helpful and Kimi goes to see Rob...

Max stumbled on one of the customer’s bags, throwing a tray of drinks across the café. Silence echoed around the shop once the clatter of cups and plates came to a stop, and Max could feel all eyes on him as he stood up, red faced and with tears in his eyes. He was never going to get the hang of this. Between studying and serving drinks, this year was turning out to be the worst year of his life and he just wanted to go home.

Luckily, Carlos ran to the aid, bringing a dust pan and brush with him to clean up the mess. Noise resumed once more, but Max was just left to stare stupidly at his college cleaning up _his_ mess.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Accidents happen,” Carlos said with a smile as he stood. “Are not all naturals.”

Max nodded and screwed his eyes shut. He wasn’t a natural coffee shop worker. He wasn’t a natural student. He wasn’t a natural anything. He was surprised his body remembered how to breathe half the time, it was so shit at anything else.

“Come on,” Carlos said, waving him over once he was back behind the counter. “You make up that order again. I will go mop the floor.”

“Thank you,” Max said, quietly, turning to the machine.

He just wanted to get this right. Just this one thing. He wanted to prove to his father he could _actually_ do something. Prove to _himself._

The coffees made it to the table without hitting the floor this time, and Carlos gave him a small smile as he came back to the counter.

“You are ok?” Carlos asked quietly.

Max nodded, quickly, gulping back the tears that were definitely not forming in his eyes.

“Hey, you will get the hang of it eventually,” Carlos promised with a smile. “Even I was not perfect at first.”

“Yeah,” Max mumbled, unconvinced.

 

A deep clean had seemed like a good idea to Hanna, until she was half way through the clean and she realised she was going to have to pick up Emily. She’d been hoping to get everything finished before the toddler came home, but that hadn’t happened.

Emily was just as cooperative as the day before, managing to unbuckle the belt on her pushchair just as they got out of the school gates.

“Emily? Emily!”

The toddler crashed into the legs of a woman hurrying in the opposite direction, falling back onto her bottom with a soft thud before starting wailing. Hanna abandoned the push chair, hurrying to the child’s rescue, but the woman she’s run into had already picked her up.

“Hanna?” Raffaela asked, bouncing Emily until the toddler stopped crying. “I guess this is Emily then.”

“Raffaela,” Hanna sighed, a little relieved. She smile, pushing the push chair towards her friend. “I’m sorry. Looks like I’m going to need a better push chair.”

Raffaela just smiled, meeting Hanna. “Shall we put you back in the push chair sweetie?”

“No!”

“Emily,” Hanna said with a sigh, holding out her hands for the child, but Emily just shook her head, holding onto Raffaela tightly.

“It’s ok,” Raffaela said. “I’ll walk back with you. Maybe I can put her to sleep?”

“It’s fine,” Hanna said. “You must have things to do.”

“Not really,” Raffaela said, holding Emily to her chest protectively. “Just finished work, so now I have nothing to do. I enjoyed our chat yesterday.”

“Yeah, it was good,” Hanna said, smiling. If Raffaela was offering, it couldn’t be that bad to accept the offer, could it. Hanna pushed the push chair on, her new friend walking beside her with Emily snuggling against her. “You’re so good with her.”

“I am sure you are too,” Raffaela said, smiling. “Think she is going to sleep.”

“You can put her in the push chair when she does,” Hanna said.

“It’s alright,” Raffaela said, smiling down at Emily. “I need all the practice I can get.”

“Well, if you need practice, imagine what the rest of us are like,” Hanna joked, watching her daughter snuggle against the Brazilian woman’s chest. “I don’t… I don’t suppose you want to go back to that coffee shop for a quick one, do you? I’d invite you back to mine but… well… it’s a bit of a mess…”

“Yeah,” Raffaela said. “Yeah, that’s a great idea.”

 

Hanna wasn’t in, which was less than convenient for Kimi, but he was heading for the next best place to find information on his boyfriend’s baby: the Halfway Houses.

The new family was settling in well, Rob thought as he made himself lunch. Today was a much less jam packed day than the day before. Felipe had gone shopping whilst he’d stayed at home to make sure the family was settled.

What Felipinho had told him was still running through his mind. The five year old might have been the only person who knew who had killed Fernando. And, if they went to the police, he would have to sit through days and days of questions. It would take months until it came to trial. They couldn’t stay in Elevency that long. Felipe _needed_ to get away from this place. They all did.

Going to the police wouldn’t bring Fernando back. It wouldn’t do anybody any good. Of course Rob wanted the person who did it to be punished – especially if it was who he _thought_ it was – but it wouldn’t be worth staying here for.

A knock on the door shocked Rob from his thoughts. Leaving the lunch on the kitchen side, he hurried through the house to answer it. It would probably be the family, he figured. They hadn’t spoken to him much when they arrived, just a brief introduction, and Rob didn’t know how familiar with the area they would be. They would probably be asking directions or something, he figured.

Which was why he was a little surprised to find Kimi Räikkönen on his doorstep.

“Oh.”

“Is this how you greet all your visitors?” Kimi asked, smirking.

“No, sorry,” Rob said. He still didn’t move to let Kimi aside. The Finn _couldn’t_ know that he knew who had killed Fernando. That wasn’t possible. And besides, the last Rob had heard, he never even left Sebastian’s bedside. He couldn’t have found out about Felipinho.

“May I come in?” Kimi asked, when Rob didn’t move.

 _I’d rather you didn’t_ , Rob thought, but he didn’t have much choice other than to let the Finn in, stepping aside and allowing Kimi into the front hall.

Kimi looked around as if he hadn’t come here in a long time. Rob watched him, the door still open and in his hands. There was no way Kimi could be here about Fernando. It just wasn’t possible.

“Is there… is there something you wanted?” Rob asked, not able to figure out what the Finn could want on his own.

“I need to talk to you,” Kimi said, taking the door from Rob and closing it.

Rob didn’t let himself gulp. He didn’t have anything to hide.

“About?” he asked, slowly.

“Hanna,” Kimi said. “And the baby.”

The sigh of relief gave was very obvious, but he didn’t even care. Of course Kimi would want to know about the baby. Of course that was what he was here for.

“Hanna’s doing well,” Rob said, leading Kimi into the living room. “Tea?”

“No thank you.”

“Right,” Rob said, unsure what to do with himself now. He wiped sweaty palms against his jeans, settling into his usual seat whilst Kimi took the chair opposite. “I mean, Emily is still a handful but I think she’s coping as well as can be expected.”

“And no more drinking?”

“Nope,” Rob said. “As far as I know, anyway. She’s coping really well. It isn’t easy.”

“I know,” Kimi said, bluntly. “And the baby?”

“Baby is fine, as far as we know,” Rob said. “There’s nothing to say any different.”

“She should know the sex by now, shouldn’t she?” Kimi said. “Daniel said she didn’t know.”

“Baby didn’t want to share its gender,” Rob said with a grin. “No, I was there. Baby was fine, just a bit too blurry or something like that.”

“So she will find out in the next scan?” Kimi asked.

“Yeah,” Rob said. “Most likely, if baby isn’t playing up.”

“Do you know… do you know what she wants?” Kimi asked.

“Well, at the moment I think she wants a full time nanny,” Rob laughed, but the joke was lost on the Finn, who just stared back at him with a blank face. “No, I don’t think she really minds, as long as it’s healthy.”

“Well, hopefully it is,” Kimi said, standing. “You will let me know when you find out anything else.”

“You can go and talk to her, you know?” Rob said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t turn you away.”

“I think it is probably better if I leave her be,” Kimi said. He knew if it were the other way around, he would want to see Hanna as little as possible. Not only had he taken her boyfriend away, but he’d also put said boyfriend in a coma. He wouldn’t blame Hanna for hating him. “I should get back to Sebastian.”

“Yeah, of course,” Rob said, standing to see Kimi out. “How is he doing?”

Kimi shrugged. “There has been no change.”

“Right,” Rob said, his stomach sinking. He knew how that felt. Or he knew how a couple of weeks of it felt. He didn’t know if he would have lasted this long. “I hope there’s some good news soon then.”

 

Nico trusted Jenson. He was probably one of the only people in Elevency he actually trusted anymore. And he trusted that Jenson would speak to Max and try to find out what his father was up to. But Jenson wouldn’t understand. The fact that he wasn’t worried about the possibility that Jos Verstappen might be trying to get Elevency proved that. So Nico was going to have to talk to somebody who did understand. Which was why he was at the hospital for the second day in a row.

Nico made his way to Sebastian’s private room alone, smiling to members of staff he passed and trying to look like he was supposed to be there. Technically, there was nothing wrong with him visiting Sebastian. It wasn’t as if there was a list of people who could or couldn’t visit him. But Nico knew he shouldn’t really be there.

He’d planned exactly what he was going to say to Kimi. This wasn’t about either of them and they were going to need to work together to keep Verstappen out. Whether he killed Alonso or not, whether he was trying to start something between them or not, they could put all that one hold until after they had sorted out Verstappen. Nico had been planning his speech all morning and he wasn’t leaving the hospital until they both agreed on a plan of action.

But, when Nico arrived at Sebastian’s room, he only found a grinning Australian chatting away to the patient.

Dan looked up when Nico appeared in the door way, looking just as surprised as the German did. Nico gulped, all of his confidence going and why couldn’t everything just go the way it was supposed to for once?

“Hi,” Dan said, weakly, waving a little.

“I was… um… looking for Kimi,” Nico said.

“He isn’t here,” Dan said, as if that wasn’t very obvious.

“Yeah,” Nico said, quietly. “Do you know where he is?”

Dan shook his head.

_Don’t panic Nico. Just because he isn’t here doesn’t mean he’s up to something. Just because he hasn’t moved from this spot for months and has chosen just after you told him you know about Alonso to do so, doesn’t mean he’s up to something._

“He said he had to sort some stuff out yesterday,” Dan said with a small shrug.

“What kind of stuff?” Nico asked.

“I dunno, he doesn’t really say much,” Dan said. “I think it was something to do with the baby, but I don’t know.”

“The baby?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Hanna’s baby. Well, Hanna’s and Seb’s.”

Right. The baby. See? Nico almost smiled in relief. It had nothing to do with Alonso, and this didn’t mean that Kimi was planning something, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

“Could you tell him I’m looking for him when you see him?” Nico asked, his plan to not leave the hospital until he’d sorted things out gone.

“Sure,” Dan said. “You could… you could stay and wait for him, if you want?”

Nico bit his lip and looked between Sebastian and Dan, then shook his head. It probably wasn’t a good idea. He’d speak to Kimi later.


	7. In which Max acts oddly, things aren't quite as go as they were before, and Hanna makes coffee

“I am really sorry about the mess,” Hanna said. She took Emily from Raffaela, lying her in an arm chair so she could continue sleeping. “I was in the middle of the clean and everything is kind of everywhere. I wasn’t really expecting company.”

“It is fine,” Raffaela said, perching on the edge of the armchair and watching Emily sleep as Hanna rushed into the kitchen.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Just coffee, please,” Raffaela called in, her eyes still on the sleeping child.

Hanna hurried to make the drinks, doing her best to not spill anything in the process. She just wanted one friend who thought she was normal. One friend who didn’t know what she had done.

“How do you take it again?”

“Black with one sugar,” Raffaela called back.

When Hanna came back into the living room, Raffaela was brushing her fingers through Emily’s wispy hair, the toddler still fast asleep. Hanna smiled, a little relieved that Raffaela didn’t look disgusted or anything, and handed her friend the drink.

“I bet you can’t wait until you get your little one,” Hanna said.

“Yeah,” Raffaela said, quietly, looking down at her mug with a small smile.

Hanna beamed, sitting herself down on the sofa and patting the spot next to her for her friend to sit down, but Raffaela just shook her head, looking down at Emily again. Hanna blushed a little, hoping the action hadn’t come off as desperate or anything. It was hard to tell what Raffaela was thinking. At least Rob made his thoughts obvious.

“So, how have you been?” Hanna asked when the silence got too awkward and she still hadn’t come up with anything to say.

Raffaela looked up at Hanna and grinned. “Have only been away from you for a night.”

“A night is a long time, sometimes,” Hanna said, weakly. She didn’t want to admit she just didn’t know what to say. She’d spoken so much about herself the day before, she didn’t want to start another monologue.

“I suppose you are right,” Raffaela said. “No, I am fine. And you?”

“Pretty good,” Hanna said. “Though I think Emily is trying to change that a little.”

“She sounds like a handful,” Raffaela said. “Don’t you have anybody to help you with her?”

“No,” Hanna said. “Well, Rob tries his best. But he has his own family to look after. And other than that… there’s just me, I guess.”

“You should not be left on your own,” Raffaela said. “Especially not when they are this age. She must be driving you around the bend some days, no?”

“No, it’s fine, really,” Hanna said. “I can cope.”

“You are sure?”

“I said I could, didn’t I?” Hanna snapped.

Raffaela stared at her, not sure what to make of the outburst. Hanna slapped a hand over her mouth, shocked herself.

“Sorry.”

“Hanna, dear, are you ok?” Raffaela asked, placing the mug of coffee down and coming over to sit beside Hanna. The German was shaking, but she nodded, quickly, gulping back tears.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“You do not look fine to me,” Raffaela said, wrapping her arms around Hanna and hugging her tightly. “I am here for you, you know. If you need me. Know how hard it is to be left alone.”

“Thank you,” Hanna whispered, pulling away from Raffaela and wiping her eyes. “I really am fine. Just… hormones.”

Raffaela laughed, sitting back. “I know how you feel.”

Hanna smiled, glad to see Raffaela didn’t think she was some kind of freak. She needed to stop doubting herself. Before Sebastian and Emily and the baby, she’d had plenty of friends. She could make friends if she wanted to.

 

“Max!”

Max shuddered, hoping he hadn’t done something else wrong. He knew Carlos had had to tell Jenson about the spillage earlier, but the Spaniard had promised he would sort things out, and Jenson didn’t seem to get angry about that kind of thing anyway. Max knew he was lucky his dad had found him such a patient boss, but he also knew everyone had to snap at some point and he hoped he hadn’t pushed Jenson to his limit already.

Max came back over to the counter, still carrying the mugs he had collected. Jenson didn’t seem angry, and that was a good thing. The Brit smiled warmly and patted Max on the back before steering him into the break room.

“We need to have a little chat,” Jenson said.

“What about?” Max asked.

He was getting fired. It was his second day on the job and he was getting fired already. His dad was going to kill him.

“It’s about your father actually,” Jenson said, taking a chair at the small table and kicking out one for Max to do the same. The colour from the teenager’s face drained and he silently took his seat, looking down at his hands. Jenson cocked his head, trying to get a better look at Max’s face but still unable to read it. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah,” Max said, quickly. “Everything’s fine.”

Jenson nodded. Something was wrong. He couldn’t really tell what, though. He was sure Nico was worrying over nothing, but watching Max now… the teenager was definitely worried about something.

“Do you know if he’s going to be coming here anytime soon?” Jenson asked.

“I don’t… I don’t think so,” Max said. “He’s pretty busy at the moment. Work and stuff.”

“Right,” Jenson said. There. Nothing to worry about. Other than whatever was worrying Max… “Max, are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Max lied, looking up at Jenson. “Carlos just says I need a little practice at waiting.”

“Yeah,” Jenson said, grinning. “Maybe a little. You should get back out there.”

Max nodded, the smile on his face forced and obviously unnatural, but Jenson thought it best to leave it now. He’d find out what was bugging the teenager when he had a little more trust from him.

 

“Have you told Valtteri yet?” Felipe asked, bringing the bags of shopping into the kitchen, only to find Rob on the phone. He rolled his eyes and got started on putting the groceries away, leaving the things that needed to be put in the cupboards for Rob to sort out. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his boyfriend nod to whatever was being said on the phone.

“Right… uh huh… yep.”

“Who is it?” Felipe mouthed, only for Rob to wave him away. Felipe huffed and took to mimicking the noises of agreement his boyfriend made until Rob was biting his lip to stop himself from laughing.

“Yeah… yeah… I got to go,” Rob said, quickly, trying to ignore the mischievous grin on Felipe’s face. “Yeah, I’ll phone you back later. Bye. Bye.”

“Who was it?” Felipe asked as Rob hung up.

“There’s been a bit of a problem,” Rob said, smiling weakly. How difficult was it for them to sort everything out at their end of things? He’d been bending over backwards and rushing around to make sure he had everything sorted over here, and it didn’t even sound like they had _started_ doing there bit.

“What kind of problem?” Felipe asked, the grin falling from his face.

“Remember when I said we were good to go?” Rob asked. “Well, it turns out we aren’t.”

“What?” Felipe said. “What haven’t you done?”

“It’s not me, it’s them,” Rob said. “They’re dragging their feet a little. It’ll all work out, don’t you worry. Just not quite as quickly as I hoped it would.”

Which meant they would be sat around here for even longer. Sat around here with a murderer on the loose and with Felipinho being the only person who knew who he was. Rob didn’t like it.

“Well, as long as we get there eventually,” Felipe said, wrapping his arms around Rob’s waist. “It will not be too long, I am sure. And then we can start again, yes. Will be even better the longer we have to wait for it.”

“You guys could still go,” Rob said. He didn’t like this plan. It meant Felipe having to look after himself for a little while and he _knew_ the Brazilian was capable of that, but he didn’t want to leave him alone. He didn’t want Felipe anywhere he couldn’t protect him.

“What?” Felipe frowned, looking up at Rob. Rob tried to smile but, judging by the way Felipe’s frown deepened, he guessed he wasn’t very convincing.

“You and Felipinho,” he explained. “You could go to the house and get it all nice and homely for when I get there.”

“But… but are supposed to be doing this together, no?” Felipe said. “No, is _our_ fresh start. Our _family’s_ fresh start. And _you_ are a part of that, Rob. Will wait here with you. Will not be that long.”

“Might be,” Rob said. Getting Felipe and Felipinho away from here was much more important than making sure Rob could protect him. This _was_ protecting him, in a way. If Kimi or Nico or whoever had killed Alonso found out Felipinho knew, they would all be in even more trouble. No, it would be much better for Felipe if he was away from here.

“Do not care,” Felipe said. “Do not care where I am as long as I am with you. Will wait for them to sort out what they have to sort out and then we can all go together. A _family_ , Rob. Are always saying that is what we are.”

“That _is_ what we are,” Rob said.

“Then I am not going without you,” Felipe said, crossing his arms.

Rob sighed. There wasn’t going to be any convincing him. He was just going to have to hope Felipinho could keep this secret.

“Alright then,” Rob said, quietly, wrapping his arms around Felipe now. It would be ok. They’d lasted months without anybody finding out that Felipinho knew what had happened to Fernando. They could last a little longer.

 

Nico was on the phone when Jenson came in, looking over the frying pan of food he was stirring. The German just kept nodding, listening to whatever was being said as he cooked. Jenson watched from the kitchen doorway, trying to figure out how the conversation was going by the expression on Nico’s face, but it was like trying to read a blank page.

“Thanks Kevin,” the German said after a while, shifting the mobile to his other ear and switching the cooker off. “Yeah, if you get onto that… yeah, that would be great. Thank you.”

He hung up the phone, placing it down before returning to the dinner he was cooking.

“Everything ok?” Jenson asked, looking over Nico’s shoulder at the food.

“Yeah,” Nico said, quickly. “Everything is fine.”

“I spoke to Max today,” Jenson said, quietly. “He doesn’t think his dad is coming over here. Don’t worry.”

“Of course he would say that,” Nico said. “He is not going to tell you if his father is going to take over the city, is he?”

“Nico, I really think you don’t have anything to worry about,” Jenson said. “Max just seems like a stressed teenager trying to not throw coffee at everyone. Even if Jos Verstappen is planning some kind of attack, it will have nothing to do with Max.”

Nico just shook his head. He still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Kimi about this yet. He had Kevin trying to find out exactly what happened on the night Alonso died, because if it wasn’t Kimi then they were going to have to find out who it was, and he couldn’t really bother his second in command with this right now. He needed to speak to Räikkönen, but getting the confidence he’d had this morning back wasn’t going to be easy.

“You could always talk to Verstappen yourself,” Jenson suggested. He was still trying to get used to the making suggestions thing. He really didn’t know much about the way things in Nico’s life worked, and he didn’t want to, but he needed to help his boyfriend. He couldn’t stand to see Nico this stressed.

“Speak to Verstappen?” Nico repeated.

“Well, what is speaking to him going to do?” Jenson said, not entirely sure what the answer to that question was.

“Say he you are right and he is not looking at Elevency,” Nico said, dishing up the dinner. “And I go and speak to him and tell him that Elevency is vulnerable…”

“You wouldn’t have to tell him that the city is ‘vulnerable’,” Jenson said, taking the pan from Nico. “No, you know best. Ignore me.”

“It’s not that I am _ignoring_ you, Jenson,” Nico said, slowly. “I just…”

“I just don’t know what I’m talking about,” Jenson said. “No, Nico, it’s fine. You know what’s going on. You do what you think’s best.”

“I really am grateful you’re trying, you know,” Nico said, quietly, watching Jenson finish serving up the food.

“I know,” Jenson said, quietly. He just wasn’t doing good enough.


	8. In which Hanna's happy, there's news on Seb, and Nico has a plan...

“Hey!” Rob caught up with Hanna just as she left the school grounds. She looked more cheerful than before, Rob noticed. More cheerful than he’d seen her since the accident. “Good day?”

“Not bad,” Hanna said, pushing the empty push chair away from the school. She was going to meet up with Raffaela again in the coffee shop after nursery. They were going to go through baby names, and hopefully they could come up with something better than bump.

“Any… any reason?” Rob asked when Hanna didn’t expand.

Hanna shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “Just meeting up with one of the mothers from the group.”

“You’re going to the group?” Rob said, grinning. He’d been the one trying to get her to go over the past couple of weeks.

When Hanna nodded, his grin widened. He knew she would enjoy it there. Of course Hanna was worried about being judged and how good a mother she would be, but Rob knew there would be nothing to worry about there.

“You like it then,” Rob said, trying to make her say he was right. It was a phrase that needed to be said a lot more, he thought.

“It’s not bad,” Hanna said, slowly, smiling.

“Not bad, right,” Rob said. “Well, as long as you’re enjoying it, I suppose. And you made a friend.”

“Yes, Rob,” Hanna said, pretending to be annoyed but unable to wipe the smile from her own face. “I am capable of this, you know.”

“I know,” Rob said. “Well, I’m just glad you’re happy.”

It was important. He didn’t mind having to be there for Hanna. He didn’t mind being the only one she could turn to. But it was going to make things difficult when – eventually – they moved away. Hanna didn’t know about his and Felipe’s plans yet. They were top secret, and Rob wanted them to stay that way for as long as possible. But now, if Hanna had other people she could turn to, it wouldn’t be so bad for her when Rob did have to say good bye.

“I should get going,” Hanna said. “Have a deep clean to restart after hurricane Emily hit the house.”

“Well, I should leave you to get that done then,” Rob said. “I’ll see you later.”

Yes, he had absolutely nothing to worry about when it came to Hanna. Now all he needed to do was sit tight, wait for the agency to hurry up with everything they were already supposed to have done, and hope Felipinho kept quiet for just a little while longer.

 

“Mr Räikkönen?”

Kimi was stopped as he went through the hospital reception by a nurse he vaguely recognised. It must have been one of the ones who worked with Seb, not that he paid too much attention.

“Yes?”

“Can we talk?” the nurse asked.

“About what?” Kimi asked. He’d slowed down but he hadn’t stopped walking, trying to carry on to Sebastian’s room.

“About Sebastian,” the nurse said, trying to get Kimi to stop. “We need to speak Mr Räikkönen.”

“Let me go and see him, and then we can speak,” Kimi said, still not stopping.

“We need to speak before you see him, Kimi, please,” the nurse said, fear clear in her voice. Kimi stopped, scared a little by her tone of voice.

“What has happened?”

“There’s been a development,” the nurse said, slowly. “I think you should sit down.”

That sounded like the exact opposite of what Kimi wanted to do. He wanted to march through the hospital, down his usual route to Sebastian’s room and see for himself what had happened, but he sat down. He did as he was told.

“What kind of development?” he asked.

“Sebastian still hasn’t woken up, but there was a step in that direction,” the nurse said, speaking as gently as possible which would have irritated Kimi if this wasn’t so important. “We saw signs of increase in brain activity and we attempted to take-.”

“What kind of development?” Kimi asked again. Why did they have to make things really long winded?

“He’s breathing on his own,” the nurse said quickly.

“He’s- that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Kimi said. It had to be a good thing. He was getting better.

The nurse nodded, smiling. “It’s a good thing.”

“You think… he’s going to wake up?” Kimi asked. It had been months. He was… he wasn’t losing hope. Not at all. But he knew, the longer Sebastian stayed asleep, the less chance he had of getting back to normal.

“There’s still a chance he won’t wake up,” the nurse said, calmly. “Quite a large chance. But this is a step in the right direction, yes. You can go and see him now, if you want to.”

 

Nico scrolled through the contacts on his phone. He was home alone again, Jenson having headed off to meet a new supplier for the coffee shop.

If he _were_ to go and speak to Jos Verstappen – and he wasn’t going to, because that was a stupid idea and it would only cause even more trouble – but if he _was_ going to go and speak to Jos Verstappen, he didn’t even know what he would do to contact him.

It wasn’t an option. Talking to Jos was not an option anyway, but even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to.

He’d speak to Kimi before he did anything. Kimi needed to know what was going on with that. Whether he was the one to dump Fernando on his doorstep or not, he would need to know about this and they could work together to keep the invader out.

He thought about going to the hospital again, but he didn’t want to show up if Kimi wasn’t there. Two days in a row wouldn’t look good for him and he knew how jumpy Kimi could be, especially when he thought Nico had reason to attack him (Nico _did_ have reason to attack him, but there were more immediate problems than that right now).

He could… He could go and ask the Verstappen kid himself. There would be nothing wrong with that. Pulling him aside, letting him know what was what, sending him back with a message for his father.

There would be nothing wrong with that at all.

Nico pulled on his coat and headed out. Jenson would still be at the suppliers, so there was no need to get him involved in anything. He just had to hope Max would be at the coffee shop.

Nico grinned to himself as he made his way to the coffee shop. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of this before. He wouldn’t do anything _too_ bad. Just make sure Max knew, and his father knew, that Jos’ presence was not needed here and was not going to be tolerated here. He didn’t need to wait for Kimi all the time. This would prove to the Finn _and_ Verstappen that Nico could handle things quite well on his own.

 

“Was thinking,” Felipe said.

“Don’t do that. We don’t want you in hospital again.”

Felipe frowned up at Rob, confused.

Rob sighed, his joke lost. “Carry on.”

“Was thinking,” Felipe said again, watching Rob closely. “We should decorate.”

“Here?” Rob asked.

“No, the new house,” Felipe said, snuggling against Rob on the living room sofa and peering up at his boyfriend. “Did not like how the old lady decorated it. Think we should redecorate. Make it ours.”

“You have a colour scheme in mind, don’t you,” Rob said.

“Was thinking… what is the colour that is like brown but also like red?” Felipe asked.

“Maroon?”

“Yes,” Felipe said. “I was thinking maroon in the living room.”

“No,” Rob said, definitely. He could picture the house inside his head now. It did _not_ look good in maroon.

“You must have the wrong colour,” Felipe said. “Would look brilliant in browny red.”

“I don’t think so,” Rob said.

The front door opened before Felipe could reply and Valtteri appeared in the living room doorway, dripping wet.

“Is raining,” he said. “Sorry I am late.”

“No, is fine,” Felipe said, getting up. “Rob has something he needs to speak to you about. Will see you later.”

Felipe hurried out of the room, taking his own coat from the stand as he left the house. Rob made to follow him then stopped.

“Is… everything ok?” Valtteri asked, hoping he hadn’t just walked into the middle of an argument.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Rob said. He had wanted to do this in his own time, but he couldn’t think of a way out of it. He was going to have to do it sooner or later, he guessed, and the longer he put it off, the more time he had to think of another reason to put it off. “Val, things are going to be changing around here.”

“Ok,” Valtteri said, slowly. He was trying to figure out where Rob was taking this, but the Brit wasn’t giving anything away.

“We’re leaving,” Rob said. It would probably be better to just spit it out, making sure his point was as clear as possible so Valtteri couldn’t pretend he had gotten the wrong end of the stick.

Valtteri didn’t say anything for a little while, then he nodded. “Thought this would happen.”

“You… you did?” Rob asked. That wasn’t the reply he had been expecting.

Valtteri nodded again. “Cannot blame you, after everything that happened with the car crash and Felipinho’s mother. Thought you would have already gone by know, if I am honest.”

Rob nodded, not entirely sure what to say now. If Valtteri had been expecting this, it meant he had some time to get used to the idea, didn’t it?

“We needed to sort something out with this place,” Rob said. “So that it could still be used for what it is now.”

“Where are you going?” Valtteri asked.

“We’ve found a place down south, by the sea,” Rob said. “It’s quiet there. Probably a better place for Felipinho to grow up.”

Valtteri nodded again. He was taking this very well, Rob thought, even with the time he must have had to come to terms with everything.

“The Houses will still be open,” Rob said. “I just won’t be here to run them like I am now.”

“Take it the agency will be sending somebody,” Valtteri said. He knew enough about how things were run now to have already figured out what Rob would have to do to keep the Halfway Houses open.

“No,” Rob said, and the first look of surprise Valtteri had shown appeared on the Finn’s face. “Actually, I was thinking you might want that role.”

“What?”

“Only if you wanted it,” Rob said, quickly, realising he might have made a mistake and Valtteri wouldn’t want the role. “But you’ve already been practically running things whilst Felipe was in hospital and you know how things work around here. I’ve spoken to the agency and they say that, as long as you’re happy and you meet the usual spot check, they’re happy for you to take over. But only if you want it.”

“Are being serious?” Valtteri asked, not sure if he should believe Rob or not. “Is not a wind up?”

“Of course not,” Rob said. “I think you’re the best person for the job and the agency seems to agree. You do… you know you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, though.”

“Would love to,” Valtteri said, beaming. Rob laughed, a little surprised to find so much emotion on the little Finn’s face. “When are you going?”

“Ah, I get it,” Rob said. “You want me out so you can start your reign of terror, don’t you? There’s still a couple of things they need to sort out at their end, but after that we’re good to go.”

“Have been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?” Valtteri said. He knew Rob. Rob would have been planning this perfectly, wouldn’t have wanted to tell Valtteri until he was absolutely certain everything was a go. Rob didn’t do spur of the moment. Felipe _did_ but this was clearly Rob’s doing.

Rob nodded. “Elevency isn’t the right place to bring up a kid,” he said. He didn’t mention why they were really leaving. He didn’t mention the day Felipe had almost left him on his own, angry and upset because of what that woman had done to them. Valtteri doesn’t need to know about that.

“Is probably the right thing to do,” Valtteri said. “Who else knows?”

“Nobody,” Rob said. “Just me, you, and Felipe. Not even Pea.”

“Not even Hanna?” Valtteri asked, a little surprised.

Rob shook his head. Hanna was probably next on his list of people he needed to tell but he’d been so caught up in trying to make sure he said the right thing to Valtteri, he hadn’t had a chance to think about how he was going to explain this to Hanna.

“I will tell her,” Rob said. “I’m just waiting for the right moment, you know?”

“She will miss you,” Valtteri said. “I think a lot of people around here will.”

“I have to do what’s right for Felipe and Felipinho first,” Rob said.

“I understand. Do not blame you,” Valtteri said. “Hope you will be happy.”

“We will be,” Rob said. He was sure of that.


	9. In which Max has a visitor, Hanna opens up, and Kimi tries to speak

Max had gone the entire morning without spilling anything, and he felt like that was some kind of accomplishment. He was only working the morning today, having to get to the university to do _some_ school work before he failed all his classes. So today was a job well done, he thought, as he left the shop, nodding to Carlos as he went. If he could just carry on the rest of the week like that, he would let himself believe he might be getting good at this.

When he turned the corner onto the street where his bus would pick him up, he found his path blocked by the blonde Jenson had been talking to the other day. Carlos had told him it was Jenson’s boyfriend, but Max wasn’t sure if he should believe him or not. He didn’t want to offend his new boss if it wasn’t true.

“Hi,” Max said, a little confused when the blonde stopped him moving past him.

“Hello,” Nico said, a hand on Max’s shoulder stopping him from going any further. “I think we need to have a little chat, Max.”

“Do I know you?” Max asked, beginning to get a little worried. He didn’t know what he had done wrong and was running everything he’d done since coming to Elevency though his head. There was nothing that bad, mostly spilling coffee and smashing cups. Would Nico be annoyed because he was wasting so much of Jenson’s business’ money?

“I know you,” Nico said, taking hold of Max’s wrist and leading him to his car. “And I know your father.”

Max was pushed into the passenger seat of the car and the door was slammed shut. He sat frozen to his chair as Nico went around the car to climb into the driver’s seat.

This was about his father. That probably didn’t mean anything good. The entire reason he’d come to Elevency was to get as far away from his father and his father’s mess as possible. But it followed him. It _always_ followed him.

He watched Nico, waiting for the blonde to speak. He’d no idea what this was about, but it was always something with his father and Max was a little surprised it had taken him this long to screw up his fresh start.

Nico didn’t give him any explanation, though, starting the car and driving down streets Max didn’t know. The teenager waited in silence, his hands wringing one another on his lap, trying to keep themselves busy and his brain occupied.

_What has he done? What has he done to make this stranger kidnap me?_

Max knew he couldn’t ask. Anything he did say would just be used against him and, if he was going to get out of this alive, he was just going to have to keep his mouth shut.

 

“I was thinking,” Hanna said, slowly, rocking the push chair where Emily lay sleeping. “If it’s a boy, about naming him after his father.”

The baby name search was going no where and Hanna’s pretty sure Raffaela was just saying names to make her laugh now, but this suggestion was serious.

“But then, I don’t want it to seem like a really morbid thing,” Hanna said.

“Why would it be morbid?” Raffaela asked.

“Oh, right, you don’t know,” Hanna said. Sometimes it didn’t seem possible there was anybody who didn’t know about Sebastian, when everybody in her life seemed to know every detail that had happened in the days leading up to the accident.

“Know what?” Raffaela asked.

“He was in an accident,” Hanna said. “He’s in hospital.”

“You said he left?” Raffaela said, confused.

“I said he didn’t have a choice though,” Hanna said. “He’s been in a coma for months. They don’t know if he’s ever going to wake up. I don’t want to name bump after him, because he _is_ still here. It isn’t like he’s dead. He might still wake up.”

“Oh Hanna,” Raffaela rushed around the table to hug her friend as tears started to roll down Hanna’s face. Hanna shook her head, trying to insist she was ok, but that clearly wasn’t true. “Hanna, I had no idea, I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright, really,” Hanna said, sniffing. She hadn’t started crying about Sebastian in a long time. She’d cried about Emily being a brat and every time the doctors told her bump was ok and just about _coping_ with everything, but not about Sebastian. She’d lost him before he got hit by the car, and she knew it.

“Well, if it means anything, I do not think that would be a bad idea,” Raffaela said. “Named my little boy after his father, and he was alive and well.”

Hanna smiled weakly and nodded a thank you, still wiping her eyes.

“You must think I’m a nutter,” she mumbled.

Raffaela laughed gently and shook her head. “I think you have every reason to be acting like this, Hanna,” she said. “Cannot even imagine being in your situation. Must be so difficult. And with nobody there to support you, either.”

“I have Rob,” Hanna said, even though she knew that wasn’t true half the time.

“Well, you have me now too,” Raffaela said. “I mean it. Any time you need me, I can be there. Do not need to be afraid.”

“You have your own life,” Hanna said. “And Rob has his own life. And I have mine.”

“It is _fine_ ,” Raffaela insisted, sitting back down. “We all need help some days. Know I could have used a friend when I was left alone.”

“I guess,” Hanna said. She would take up her new friend’s offer, if she ever really needed it, but she knew better than to rely on other people. She would set a limit, one Raffaela didn’t need to know about, and wouldn’t let herself cross it.

“So,” Raffaela said. “Girls names?”

 

“Sebastian?”

Kimi sighed. Why did this always feel so awkward?

“There is so much I want to say, you know,” Kimi said, quietly. “Just do not really know how to say it aloud.”

That wasn’t really true. He knew exactly what he wanted to say. He’d practiced going through it all more times than he could count over the past few months, wanting to get it perfect in case he ever got the chance to speak to Sebastian properly again.

No, the problem was the reaction. Or the lack of it. He wanted a reply. He wanted to have a conversation, or for Sebastian to march off. He wanted Sebastian to be awake for him to accept the apology or throw it away and, now, he didn’t even care which it was as long as it was _something_.

But maybe Sebastian could hear him now. The nurse had said there was more brain activity, or something like that. Maybe that meant Sebastian was more aware of what was going on.

“Am sorry, you know,” Kimi said, quietly. “For turning you away that night. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything more in my life, you know. I should not have been such an idiot. Should just have listened to what you had to say. None of this would have happened if I had just listened to you.”

Kimi didn’t know where they would have been now, but it would have been some place better than here. Sebastian would be some place safe, and that was all that really mattered.

“Have changed, you know,” Kimi said. “Need to wake up so you can see that, yeah? Wake up, Seb, please.”

There was still nothing. Just Sebastian’s chest rising and falling, his lips slightly parted to let the breath in and out.

“Am going to give it up, you know, when you get back,” Kimi said, quietly. “I need to look after you and I can’t do that if I am looking after everything else. And, no, I am not sure that Rosberg would be able to handle things by himself, but I do not care anymore. You are more important.”

Maybe leaving Rosberg alone to sort things out wasn’t such a good idea. If he still hadn’t found Alonso’s killer for two months, what hope had he of being able to sort out all the other problems Kimi had been dealing with for years? But that didn’t matter to him. They’d leave. Go somewhere nobody knew them and he could look after Sebastian properly. They’d take Hanna and the kids if they had to. But away from here.

 

Nico stopped the car in an empty street Max had never seen before. He looked around, automatically looking for an escape route, but he hadn’t been able to follow the journey and it looked like they were in the middle of nowhere. The street was made up of an empty warehouse on one side and what looked like a building site on the other, but Max couldn’t see anybody working there. He bit his lip and turned to Nico, waiting for him to say something.

Nico hadn’t spoken the entire journey here, hadn’t given Max any clues as to why he was here, and the teenager’s imagination was going racing. He knew what kind of thing his father could do, but none of that had ever ended up with him in this kind of situation, which meant it had to be something even worse.

“It’s Max, isn’t it?” Nico said.

Max nodded quickly, his breath getting stuck in his throat.

“What are you studying Max?” Nico asked.

“Er…” Max’s mind suddenly went blank and he stuttered and stumbled through a pause whilst he tried to remember what he studied. “Um… his… history.”

“History?” Nico repeated, nodding. “Never seen the point in history myself.”

“I… um… I find it interesting,” Max said. He’d already had to defend his degree to his father. He didn’t think he was going to have to do it again any time soon.

“So, what’s the plan after uni, Maxy?” Nico asked.

“Max,” Max corrected him before he could stop himself. As soon as he heard himself, his cheeks started to burn red. “Sorry… I mean… it’s just Max.”

He glanced up at Nico, then back down to his hands, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers again.

“What’s the plan after uni, Max?” Nico asked again.

“I… er… I don’t… know…” Max said, slowly. He did have plans, but not any he had shared with anybody. Not even his parents.

“Kind of lucky you’ve got the family business to fall back on then, isn’t it?” Nico said.

“The… the what?” Max stuttered.

“I know you know what I’m talking about, Max,” Nico said. “Why are you really here?”

“I just… the university is good,” Max stammered, not wanting the German to know just how badly he wanted to get away from his father.

“Yes,” Nico said. “The university. Right. When you go back home, I want you to tell your father Rosberg says hi.”

There was a click which Max recognised as the door locks. He hadn’t even realised he’d been locked in, but wasn’t surprised. Cautiously, watching Nico, he tried the door and found it open. That was his queue to leave.

 

Having Valtteri on side had given Rob a boost of confidence. He’d known all along this was the best for them, but knowing the Finn thought the same – the Finn who probably knew him better than almost anybody else – backed up the thought. This wasn’t just him thinking the grass was greener on the other side. This was definitely going to be better for them.

Felipe still wasn’t back when Valtteri had finished his to do list, and the two of them were sat in the kitchen, going over Rob’s moving plans.

“Still think you are being over cautious,” Valtteri said. “You will smother him and scare him away.”

“I just want to make sure he’s ok,” Rob said again.

“There is nothing you could have done that would have changed what happened,” Valtteri said, gently. He hadn’t been there the night of the accident, but he didn’t need to be to know there was nothing Rob could have done to stop it happening.

“I know,” Rob snapped, glaring at Valtteri for a moment before realising he was being stupid. “Sorry,” he said, quietly. Valtteri was just trying to help. He was only ever trying to help. “Just… sore subject.”

“Felipe has been telling you the same?” Valtteri asked.

Rob nodded. “All the time but I don’t… It isn’t that I don’t believe him I just… I want to be there for him. Just in case.”

“You have to be careful,” Valtteri said, quietly.

“I know,” Rob said. “That’s why I’m being careful.”

“No, I mean…” Valtteri paused, trying to figure out a way to say what needed to be said without offending his friend. “Have to let him do what he wants to,” he said, slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Cannot make decisions for him.”

“I’m not,” Rob said. Although, maybe that wasn’t strictly true. It wasn’t as if he was stopping him from doing _anything_ , just… he wasn’t ready to be independent again yet, not after the accident. Rob was just looking after him, like the doctors had said he needed. He wasn’t… “You think I’m like her, don’t you?”

“No,” Valtteri said, glad Rob understood what he was talking about though. “Think maybe you might let yourself become like her, though, if you are not careful.”

“I am _not_ like her,” Rob snapped. “I would never do anything to hurt him.”

“I know,” Valtteri said. “But that is only the beginning of it. And I _know_ you would never hurt him. But Felipe might… Felipe might put how you are being now and compare it to how she was being before it got bad. He might worry.”

“ _I_ am not like her,” Rob said again. “Felipe knows that. He wouldn’t be with me if he didn’t.”

And what gave Valtteri this right to intrude in his relationship, anyway? It had nothing to do with the Finn whatsoever and, yes, he was probably the most helpful employee Rob had ever had but he was just that, an employee. He wasn’t part of their family and their family had nothing to do with him.

“Fine,” Valtteri said, standing. “You know better than I do, I guess. I will leave you to it.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rob said, quickly, not bothering to see Valtteri out.


	10. In which Felipinho says please, Jenson disagrees, and Kimi might be the answer...

“Rob?”

“Reading book, Pea,” Rob said. He was sure it shouldn’t take as long as it did to go through Felipinho’s reading book, but when the five year old insisted on getting distracted after every sentence…

“Rob, you know the bad man?” Felipinho asked.

“What?” Rob frowned, looking down at the reading book. He hadn’t _really_ been paying much attention and, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t really blame Felipe entirely for Felipinho’s selective hearing.

“The bad man,” Felipinho said. “The one that-.” Felipinho looked around quickly, but his father was upstairs getting the bath ready. “The one that hurt Daddy’s friend?” he whispered, just in case his father heard.

“Oh,” Rob said. He’d hoped Felipinho had forgotten that discussion, but apparently not. “Yeah? What about him? He isn’t coming here, you know? There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Don’t I have to go and tell the police?” Felipinho asked. “So they can catch him and make sure he goes to prison forever and ever?”

“It’s ok,” Rob said. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“But he has to go to prison.”

“The police have already found him,” Rob lied. “I told the police what you told me, and they found him. And now he’s in prison and he’ll be there for a very long time.”

Rob pulled Felipinho towards him and kissed the top of his head, relieved when the child just nodded and continued his reading book. This probably wasn’t the “right” thing to do, but Rob didn’t care. Felipinho was safe and happy and he couldn’t guarantee that if he went ahead and told the police, or Räikkönen, or anybody.

Felipinho finished his reading book just as his father came down the stairs.

“You ready?” Felipe asked, drying his hands on his trousers.

“Finished,” Felipinho said, jumping up. “Can Rob do bath time?”

“I am doing your bath,” Felipe said. “Rob is busy.”

“No he isn’t,” Felipinho said, turning to Rob. “Please do bath time.”

“Nope,” Rob said, tapping Felipinho on the head with his reading book. “That’s Daddy’s job, not mine. Go and have a bath, before you start to smell.”

“But I said please,” Felipinho said, sticking out his bottom lip and making Rob laugh.

“I know you did,” Rob said. “But that’s Daddy’s job.”

“I’m not having a bath then,” Felipinho said. “And you will have to live with a smelly pants because I’m not having a bath until you give me one.”

“Well we’ll have to make you live outside then, won’t we?” Rob said. The laughter fell from his face when he looked up from the child to Felipe. Felipe just shook his head, standing aside to let Rob up the stairs. Rob sighed, but nodded. “Alright, why don’t you go upstairs and get undressed. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“You?” Felipinho asked.

“Yes, me,” Rob said, patting the child on the head with his reading book again and sending him off up the stairs. “He’ll grow out of it,” he said, once Felipinho was gone.

“But what if he does not?” Felipe asked. “He hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Rob said, pulling Felipe into a hug and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Who could hate you, hey? They’d have to be mad.”

“What if he blames me?” Felipe asked. He’d been thinking about it a lot, trying to work out why his son wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and that was the only explanation Felipe could come up with.

Rob frowned and pulled away from him. “Blame you for what?”

Felipe shrugged. “For the accident? Or for leaving him on his own with his mother? Or just… or just not being there for him? Have been a terrible parent since the day he was born. Has every reason to hate me.”

“What’s brought on this kind of thinking, hey?” Rob said with a nervous laugh. “He _doesn’t_ hate you, ok? Give him a couple of weeks it’ll be you he’s clinically attached to. And as for you being a terrible parent, he wouldn’t be here if that was true, would he? You have done everything you can to make sure he’s happy. There’s no way he blames you for the accident, or what happened with that woman. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You are sure?” Felipe asked.

“I’m sure,” Rob said. “Come on. Why don’t we both do bath time and I’ll sneak out half way through, yeah?”

 

“You did what?” Jenson cried.

Nico blinked, surprised, his mouth hanging open a little whilst his mind tried to figure out what he was supposed to say next. To say he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction from his boyfriend was a bit of an understatement but, really, his brain hadn’t caught up enough to accurately describe how confused he was.

“Why would you do a thing like that?” Jenson asked. “Why would you think that was a good idea?”

He _knew_ it was Nico who went through this kind of thing. He knew this was Nico’s business and the German didn’t come and tell him what brand of coffee to buy, but there was no way Jenson could believe this had been a good idea.

“What about what your Dad did to Sebastian?” Jenson reminded him.

“This wasn’t like that,” Nico said, something clicking in his head and bringing him back to life. “I didn’t hurt him.”

“No, you just scared the shit out of him,” Jenson said. “He is a seventeen year old kid. What made you think that was going to be ok?”

“He is working for his father, I know it,” Nico said. “Do not try to lecture me.”

“Isn’t this just going to give Jos even more reason to come over here?” Jenson asked. “Haven’t you just pissed him off? Isn’t he just going to want to come after you now?”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Nico said. He was right. Jenson was right and he’d just gone and made this ten times worse and couldn’t he do _anything_ right. Was it really that hard? Well, yes, apparently it was.

“It has something to do with me, Nico, because I care about you,” Jenson said. “I might not always know the right thing to do and what’s acceptable and everything but-.”

“Exactly!” Nico snapped. He never should have even told Jenson what he had done, even if the Brit would have found out about it at some point. But they were going out, and they didn’t keep secrets. He’d thought his boyfriend would appreciate that, but apparently not. “You have no idea what is acceptable and what isn’t. So don’t lecture me, Jenson. You don’t know what’s going on so just leave it to me.”

“Fine,” Jenson said. “Do what you want Nico. I’m going out.”

“Where?” Nico asked, jumping up.

“Does it matter?” Jenson asked.

“No, I just…”

“I’ll see you later.”

 

“Hey mate.”

Kimi looked up, surprised to find Dan standing in the doorway. He didn’t usually come this often, but it wasn’t _entirely_ unusual. Kimi smiled weakly and Dan spun around, half expecting somebody else to be stood behind him, but he was alone.

“The nurses said he’s getting better,” Dan said, coming to sit back in his usual seat opposite Kimi.

“Is breathing on his own,” Kimi said. It didn’t change anything. Sebastian still wasn’t responding. There was still a large chance he wasn’t going to make it through this, and that would be his fault.

“Well, that’s good,” Dan said. “Bet you can hear us better now, can’t you?”

He grinned down at Sebastian, squeezing the German’s hand a little. Before, Kimi had always thought it was Dan’s coping method. He couldn’t really believe that Sebastian really heard anything he said, but this was the way Dan was coping, and Kimi had always respected that. But now, looking at the way Dan would glance over at him every couple of seconds, he was beginning to think this was Dan’s way of comforting _him_.

“One step down, another bunch to go, isn’t it,” the Australian said, and Kimi couldn’t tell if he was talking to him or Sebastian. “Just take a little less time with the next step, hey?”

Dan looked up at Kimi, the smile falling from his face a little when he saw how dead the Finn looked.

“You still think this is your fault, don’t you?” Dan said. He didn’t know if this was intruding or not, but he had to ask.

“It is, isn’t it?” Kimi said, quietly. He hadn’t really spoken to anybody the entire time Sebastian had been in hospital. Not really. A few words to the nurses, to tell them that no he didn’t want anything to eat or drink. He was fine and he was looking after himself and they didn’t need to worry. He hadn’t spoken about what had happened that night.

“You don’t know that,” Dan said, gently. “He wouldn’t do this to himself. Not with Emily and the baby. He just wouldn’t.”

“Thought he could not cope,” Kimi said. “Thought I would not support him. I _told_ him I would not support him.”

“He wouldn’t have done it,” Dan said. “You know Sebastian. He loved Emily more than anything in the world and he would not have left her. No matter what.”

“I still threw him out, didn’t I?” Kimi pointed out. “I did not give him a chance to explain. If I had just let him in, he would not even have been there when the car hit. This is my fault, Daniel. Do not tell me otherwise.”

“Hello?”

Both Kimi and Dan looked up, surprised to see Jenson stood in the hallway, peering into the dark little room where Sebastian lay. Jenson wasn’t sure how his face should look. His face automatically tried to smile in greeting but it didn’t seem appropriate. Not even Dan was smiling.

“The nurses told me I could find you here,” he said, nervously. “I kind of need to speak to you, Kimi. In private?”

“I should get going anyway,” Dan said, standing and grabbing his coat. He hadn’t stayed as long as he had wanted to, but he knew when he was not wanted.

Jenson stepped aside to let Dan past, having to pull his eyes back up from the floor to look across Sebastian’s body to Kimi. Kimi nodded to the chair, but all he wanted was for Jenson to leave. He would have thought the Brit would be able to go to his boyfriend about his problems, but apparently not.

Jenson swallowed, still a little nervous, and sat in the seat Dan had vacated. He knew he probably shouldn’t be coming to Kimi, not after the trouble he had caused the last time he had gone to the Finn, but he couldn’t let Nico go on like this.

“How’s he doing?” Jenson asked, not looking at Sebastian.

“As well as we can hope,” Kimi said, his voice even quieter than it usually was. The Finn wasn’t looking at Sebastian either, completely changing from how Jenson had found him speaking to Dan. This was the Kimi Jenson _knew_. Not the real one, he was sure, but the one he was expected to be.

“I’m sorry,” Jenson said, his mouth incredibly dry. “I can’t… I cannot imagine what you are going through.”

“You came here to talk?” Kimi said. He didn’t want to sit here through a stranger trying to be sympathetic. It was bad enough with Dan, but at least he knew Dan was hurting too. He knew Dan was feeling the same way as him, and Dan cared. Jenson, as nice as he was, was just being polite.

“Yeah,” Jenson said, slowly. “It’s about Nico.”

“I do not really have time for Nico’s problems right now,” Kimi said. “He told me about Alonso.”

“It’s not that,” Jenson said. “It’s… I gave Jos Verstappen’s son a job, because he’s at the university and I owed Jos a favour, and Nico’s convinced he’s going to come and take over the city.”

“Jos Verstappen is in Elevency?”

“No, his _son_ is in Elevency,” Jenson said. “There was nothing wrong. Everything is fine. And then Nico went and took Max – that’s the kid – on a drive and that’s just tempting Jos to come and do something, isn’t it? I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t listen to me. Could you…?”

“He has done _what_?” All calmness in Kimi’s voice was gone all of a sudden and it was only now that Jenson realised there might actually be something wrong here.

“What?”

“Nico is tempting Verstappen here?” Kimi said.

“He’s trying to keep him away,” Jenson said, hoping he hadn’t just dropped Nico into anything. Going to Kimi last time hadn’t exactly gone to plan and he didn’t want a repeat of that.

“Could I what?” Kimi asked.

“What?”

“You asked if I could do something,” Kimi said. “What did you want?”

“Can you help?” Jenson asked. “I don’t know how. I don’t do what you do, but what Nico’s done can’t be helping, can it?”

“I will sort it,” Kimi promised. Maybe he couldn’t just leave this all behind after all.


	11. In which Hanna panics, Kimi goes to sort things out, and Nico tries to explain...

Hanna was surprised to not be woken up at half past five in the morning with a pair of little feet kicking into her back. She was surprised to not be woken up at half five at all. When she eventually woke up, of her own accord, her phone said it was quarter to seven, far later than she had become used to waking up at. Even more surprisingly, the bed was empty of any tantrum throwing toddler. That was a nice surprise.

Hanna sat up, wincing a little at the ache in her back. It would be lovely to have a lie in on one of the few days Emily let her, but she needed to go to nursery. Maybe the fact Emily was in her own bed meant she had a better night’s sleep last night, and wouldn’t be so grumpy. There was a chance, anyway.

“Come on sleepy head,” Hanna said, yawning as she crossed the hall into Emily’s bedroom. “Need to go to nursery, don’t we?”

Hanna’s sleepy smile left her face immediately when she noticed Emily wasn’t in her bed.

“Emily?”

Or in her room at all, it seemed, when Hanna crouched down to check under the bed.

“Emily!”

Or back in her bedroom, Hanna found when she checked again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything in her sleepy state. Emily wasn’t there. Emily wasn’t anywhere.

Hanna rushed down the stairs, hoping to find the toddler sat in the kitchen with the pots and pans out again, or building a cushion fort in the living room but there was nothing. Except a slightly open front door.

 

Kimi was going over what Dan had said to him the day before as he made his way to the meeting he had arranged the night before. He knew he should be focusing on the task at hand, that he needed to be completely focused if he were to talk Verstappen out of anything Nico had managed to talk him into, but his mind kept wondering.

It was his fault. He’d accepted that now. Two months of waiting in silence and he still hadn’t found an excuse good enough. He hadn’t found a way to put the blame on anybody else. He’d tried Dan, at first. Because if they had never slept together, he wouldn’t have been drunk in the first place. He soon realised that was a load of shit. It was no excuse. There _was_ no excuse. He could try blaming the driver of the car but the fact still stood that Sebastian wouldn’t even have been out there if it wasn’t for him.

He didn’t understand why Dan felt so sorry for him. Maybe he wouldn’t, if he knew how hard Kimi had tried to blame the Australian. Kimi didn’t even know if Dan knew he knew about the two of them. The betrayal.

Mistake. Sebastian had never wanted it to happen. Kimi was sure of that now. And, even if he had, it didn’t mean he deserved what he’d gotten.

Kimi sighed, annoyed at himself for letting his brain wander down this path again. He had work to do. An invader to keep out. He needed to keep focus and put these personal matters behind him.

He had arranged with Verstappen to meet on neutral ground. There was a hotel in a little town next door to Elevency. Kimi had no control there, and neither did Verstappen. The bar wouldn’t be open this early but Kimi had managed to convince them to allow the meeting to take place and, hearing who it was between, the owner hadn’t really been in a rush to argue. Peace between Verstappen and Rosberg had been shaky at best when Keke Rosberg had been great. Anything they could do to keep the peace was definitely going to be done.

Kimi pulled into a practically deserted car park about half an hour before the meeting had been arranged for. He preferred to keep Nico waiting whenever the two of them felt need for a meeting, but he didn’t want to run the risk of pissing off Verstappen. He had only ever spoken to the Dutch on a handful of occasions, and never about business. He knew what to expect, but was still on edge.

A quick look around the car park and Kimi was sure the older man wasn’t there yet. He didn’t know what Verstappen’s car was like, but he guessed it wasn’t going to be any of the beaten up wrecks that were parked in the small yard. The Verstappen he had known liked to show off his power. He would know what car was his when he saw it.

Going into the bar area of the hotel reminded Kimi of Alonso’s. The bars themselves were nothing alike. The hotel’s was sophisticated, lots of white and glass with a pretty young lady behind the bar. It was the atmosphere and the actions. It hit him again that the Spaniard wasn’t with them anymore. Finding out who had attacked him was next on Kimi’s to do list.

The woman smiled at Kimi as he approached the bar. “Coffee sir?”

Kimi nodded, standing at the bar and watching the waitress make his drink. Behind her, looking into the back room, he could see a television relaying the CCTV from around the building and a thought occurred to him. The first thing he needed to do to find out what had happened to Alonso was get the CCTV from the Spaniard’s bar. Maybe it would just show Alonso leaving for the last time, or maybe it would show who had dumped him on Nico’s doorstep. It was definitely something worth checking.

“Here you are, sir,” the waitress said with a smile, placing the mug in front of Kimi. “Is there anything else you would like?”

“No, thank you, I am fine.”

He was watching the CCTV, waiting for the pictures to flick back round to the car park so he could wait until Verstappen arrived.

 

“Hanna? Are you ok?”

Hanna gulped back tears, relieved to hear the friendly voice on the other end of the phone. She couldn’t find Emily anywhere nearby and she needed help. Someone must have taken her or something. A toddler couldn’t toddle off this far by herself.

“She’s gone,” Hanna said, her words choked.

“Hanna?” Rob asked and Hanna took a shaky breath.

“Someone has taken Emily,” Hanna said again. “I woke up and she wasn’t there. I can’t find her. She’s gone.”

“Alright, Hanna, where are you?” Rob said, taking control again. “I’m on my way, ok?”

“I’m at home,” Hanna said. She didn’t know what to do or where to look. There was a play area at the end of the street and she’d been sure, if Emily had wandered anywhere by herself, it would have been there, but the play area was deserted.

“Right, I’m on my way,” Rob said. “Have you phoned the police?”

Hanna shook her head. “I can’t. Rob, they’ll take her away from me. They’ll say I can’t cope and they’ll take her away. I can’t let them take her away from me.”

“Nobody’s going to take her away from you,” Rob promised. “Phone them. They’ll help you find her. Don’t worry, you’ll get her back. I promise, ok. I’m going to have to get off the phone to get in the car, but you phone the police alright?”

Hanna nodded again but her throat too tight to speak. The line went dead before she hung up and she pulled the phone from her ear.

Emily and the baby were all she had left of her old life. Her life before she’d managed to screw everything up and lost Sebastian not once but twice. She knew she didn’t deserve them, but she couldn’t lose them. Not after losing everything else.

Hanna looked down at her phone. She needed to phone the police. Trust Rob and phone the police if she wanted Emily back.

Before she could dial the number, however, the phone started ringing. Hanna gulped, blinking at the unknown number before answering.

“Hello?”

“Hanna?” Raffaela. Hanna gulped back tears again.

“I’m a little busy at the moment,” she said, trying not to sound as if she was completely out of control. She knew Raffaela had asked her to come to her if she needed to, but this was too much to worry somebody who was practically a complete stranger with.

“Is ok, Hanna, I have Emily,” Raffaela said, gently.

“You have… what? How?”

Hanna fell back to lean against the wall, closing her eyes and wiping her hair out of her face.

“Was on my way to work when I spotted her,” Raffaela said. “You are at home? I will bring her back. Are you ok?”

“Thank you,” Hanna whispered, relieved. “Thank you so much.”

“Hanna, are you ok?” Raffaela asked again. “I am on my way now, ok? Do not go anywhere.”

 

Nico peered into the coffee shop from across the street, wanting the make sure the Verstappen kid wasn’t working before going inside. There was no sign of the teenager, just Carlos clearing tables and Jenson stood behind the counter looking very bored. The coast was clear.

Jenson looked up at the sound of the bell. It was always dead this time of week and the regulars had already come and gone. The reserved for customers charm disappeared when he saw who it was.

“Jenson? I wanted to talk.”

“Really?” Jenson asked. “Talk to somebody like me? Somebody who has no idea what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Nico said, pushing himself up on a stool only for Jenson to wander off to reorganise some mugs. He hadn’t come home last night or, if he had, he hadn’t woken Nico up. The German had tried to stay up for as long as he could but, by the early hours of the morning, he’d given up. “Jenson?”

“He’s not here, Nico,” Jenson said, not turning to face his boyfriend. “If you’ve come here to threaten Max again, he isn’t here.”

“I have come to speak to you,” Nico said. He hoped this wasn’t hopeless. He’d made a mistake, yes. He could see that now. But he’d made mistakes before and Jenson hasn’t acted like this about them. “I know you were upset last night but, please, let me explain.”

“I think you explained enough last night,” Jenson said.

“You did not listen to me,” Nico said.

“I listened to you plenty,” Jenson snapped. “You kidnapped a child and threatened him. What kind of explanation is there for that? Honestly Nico?”

He glanced over at the few people who were lingering in the shop, but none of them seemed to be listening to him. Jenson sighed, mentally scolding himself for being so careless.

“Carlos?”

Carlos looked up from where he was definitely _not_ listening in on his boss’ conversation.

“Could you watch the till a minuet?”

“Sure.”

Jenson smiled a thank you and, taking Nico by the hand, dragged him through to the back room.

“What do you want to explain?” Jenson asked.

“Where did you go last night?” Nico asked, sitting down.

“Does it really matter to you?” Jenson said.

“I care about you,” Nico said. “I want to make sure you’re alright. And that what happened to Sebastian doesn’t happen to you. I was worried.”

“I was angry,” Jenson said. “I just… I just needed some time to myself. I went to see Jessica.”

“Oh,” Nico said. Jenson rarely saw his sister these days, but they were still in contact, spending hours at a time talking to one another on the phone.

“What do you want to explain?” Jenson asked again. He had work to do and, unlike Nico, he didn’t have anyone to go in and rescue him if he screwed it up.

“I know you think what I did was wrong,” Nico began. That was because it was wrong. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid and he honestly didn’t know what went on inside his head most of the time. But it was done now, and he couldn’t back down from it. “But it sent Verstappen a message, and I don’t think we’re going to see him around here any time soon.”

“He wasn’t coming anyway,” Jenson said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“As soon as he heard that there was anything going on between Räikkönen and I, he would have had his eyes on Elevency,” Nico said. “I know Verstappen.”

Jenson huffed. He couldn’t be bothered to deal with this right now. “Fine,” he said, standing. “Is there anything else?”

“Are you coming home tonight?” Nico asked. He couldn’t tell what his boyfriend was thinking anymore and he hated it. He’d been sure they were getting back on track but this had just ruined everything.

Jenson sighed and took hold of Nico’s hands, pulling him out of the chair. “Of course I’m coming home tonight,” he said, squeezing Nico’s hands gently. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll see you later alright? I’m expecting a rush.”

“You never get a rush on Thursdays,” Nico said, his smile back.

“Just you watch,” Jenson said, going back into the shop front. “I’ll be rushed off my feet in half an hour.”


	12. In which Kimi has his meeting, Hanna finds out the truth, and Dan calls the nurse...

“Yep, she’s safe and sound,” Hanna said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you taking her into nursery?” Rob asked. “I could come and pick you up if you need me to.”

Hanna shook her head, even though Rob couldn’t see that over the phone. “No, I’m going to keep her off today. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Right,” Rob said. “I should get off the phone. Got a little one of my own to get in. I’ll speak to you later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hanna said, quietly. Of course Rob felt the need to check up on her. She wasn’t capable of looking after herself. “Speak to you later.”

She hung up before Rob did this time, not wanting to have the dead tone in her ear. Raffaela was on her way with Emily now and it briefly occurred to Hanna that she should try to make herself presentable. She was still in her pyjamas, not having time to stop since discovering Emily was missing. Before she could act on the thought, there was a knock on the door.

Hanna rushed to answer it, relieved to find her baby girl sleeping in her friend’s arms.

“Emily!”

“Shush,” Raffaela said, gently, laughing as she handed the child back to her mother. “It’s ok. She’s fine. Found her dawdling along looking rather lost. Thought you might be missing her.”

Hanna clutched Emily to her chest, screwing her eyes shut and pressing a kiss to her daughter’s wispy blonde hair. Raffaela smiled and slid past Hanna, inside.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“So much better now you’re here,” Hanna whispered, rocking a little even though Emily was already fast asleep.

“She’s fine,” Raffaela said again, smiling softly. “Come on, I will make you some tea. Or coffee.”

“You have work, don’t you?” Hanna said as Raffaela steered her back into the living room where she fell onto the sofa with Emily still in her arms. “You’ve been great, really, but I can’t stop you living your own life.”

“Is fine,” Raffaela said, crouching down in front of her to speak. “Is really fine. Have told them that I cannot come in today. You need me more than they do.”

She took hold of one of Hanna’s hands and squeezed it gently, locking eyes with Hanna and refusing to look away.

“I’m alright,” Hanna said, quietly.

“Know what it is like for a little one to disappear,” Raffaela said. “Am staying with you today. You need me more than they do.”

As if to stop Hanna from arguing any further, Raffaela stood and disappeared into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. Hanna sighed and looked down at Emily, asleep and oblivious to everything. She pressed her lips against Emily’s forehead for a moment, listening to the sounds of the child’s quiet snores. She was ok.

 

Verstappen was late, but that didn’t surprise Kimi in the slightest. He stood at the bar with his empty coffee cup on a small plate in front of him, watching the CCTV images flick through over and over again until, eventually, he saw a sleek, black car appear in the hotel car park. He was here then.

It would be simple, Kimi tried to convince himself. He would try to find out if Verstappen knew what Nico had done to his son and, if not, he would make it very clear that Elevency was in good hands. There were no cracks for him to wriggle into. If not, Verstappen would need to know that Nico was being dealt with. Kimi could do both those things, he was sure.

Verstappen looked exactly how Kimi remembered him, the Finn noticed when the older man came into the bar. He was dressed smart, smarter than Kimi had bothered to dress, and flanked by his second in command, a man Kimi didn’t recognise. There was only the two of them and, for some reason, Kimi had half expected more, but it didn’t matter. He stepped away from the bar, his hand out stretched, to greet Verstappen.

Verstappen ignored him, stepping past Kimi to lean against the bar, smiling to the uncomfortable looking waitress as he requested their drinks.

“So,” Verstappen said. “You’re the man in charge of Elevency?”

“One of them,” Kimi said. He was still trying to work out what to expect from the older man.

“You are Lauda’s boy, right?” Verstappen said, nodding to the waitress when she came over with his drink. “Räikkönen? Kimi?”

“Yes sir,” Kimi said.

“Oh, you do not have to call me sir now, do you?” Verstappen said with a smile that threw Kimi a little. “We are equals, right?”

“Of sorts,” Kimi said, his eyes narrowing a little. Elevency was a more important role than anywhere else around here, and they both knew it. Kimi sharing the role with Nico didn’t make it any less important.

Verstappen’s smile fell away from his eyes, but his face didn’t change. He nodded, knowing Kimi was right, and took a long drink from his mug, Kimi watching him all the while.

“I take it you have seen my son,” Verstappen said.

“No, actually,” Kimi said. “I heard he was in the area, though.”

“At the university,” Verstappen said. “Studying history. Ugh.” The distaste was clear in Verstappen’s voice and he glared down at his coffee as if it had offended him. “Do you have any of your own, Kimi?”

“No.”

“Shame,” Verstappen said. “You would not know what it is like to have a child who continuously lets you down then.”

Kimi stiffened a little. He hadn’t come here to hear this and he wasn’t going to let them go off topic.

“So, if your son is in Elevency, you will be following him?” Kimi asked.

“Ah,” Verstappen said, as if he hadn’t known what this was all about all along. “You are worried I will be moving in on your area.”

“Worried is not the word I would use,” Kimi said. “But it is what I want to talk to you about.”

“So you are worried,” Verstappen said, smirking. “I have no intentions of coming to Elevency, Räikkönen. Where my son choses to waste his life is nothing to do with me.”

“You can understand why I would like to speak to you though,” Kimi said. “Especially after what Rosberg has done.”

Verstappen was going to find out about what Nico had done sooner or later. Pretending he didn’t know about it or keeping it from him would only make things trickier between the two of them.

“Rosberg?”

It was Kimi’s tern to smirk a little now. “Nico. I am not in this role alone, and sometimes Rosberg can be a little… too quick to react.”

“What has he done?” Verstappen asked.

“Not much,” Kimi said. “Given Max a warning, let him know of the situation in Elevency in case you or he were getting any ideas.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is what has already happened,” Kimi said, holding out his hands. “This is how Rosberg reacts. And it will be even worse if he does not think that his little chat with Max has worked out.”

Surprisingly, Verstappen looked calm. A lot calmer than Kimi thought he would look. His eyes narrowed a little but he turned away from Kimi before he said anything, taking a long drink from his cup of coffee.

“Rosberg would do well to remember what it is like to be Max’s age,” Verstappen said, eventually.

He pushed himself away from the bar, and Kimi, and made to leave the silent bar area. Kimi spun around, frowning.

“That is it?” he asked.

“I think we have covered everything,” Verstappen said. “You have warned me to stay away from Elevency. I have warned you to stay away from my son. Is there anything else you need to discuss?”

Kimi gritted his teeth. No, there wasn’t. But Verstappen couldn’t just walk out of here like that. What kind of respect would that show?

“I take it I will not see you around then?” he said.

“Oh,” Verstappen said. “I never said that.”

 

Dan was a little surprised to find Kimi wasn’t in his usual chair in the hospital room beside Sebastian’s bed. The first thing he did was check with the nurse that everything was alright. They’d been just as concerned as he was when the Finn didn’t show up at the usual time, and they had no idea where he was either. Dan considered phoning him, making sure he was alright, but decided against it. It was probably something to do with whatever Jenson had come to see him about the day before, or another emergency of some kind, and Kimi wouldn’t want him interfering if that was the case.

“Hey,” Dan said to Sebastian, settling into his own usual seat and watching his friend sleep. “How are you today then? I don’t suppose you’ve been up to anything exciting, have you mate?”

Silence.

Dan took hold of Sebastian’s hand, gently brushing his thumb against his friend’s knuckles.

“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t suppose anything very interesting does happen in this hospital all that often. Although, this is Elevency. You never know.”

He laughed, nervously. He normally knew what to say, but now his mind was blank.

“There’s a new TV programme starting this weekend,” Dan said. “I think you’d like it. Dany said it’s not really your thing but I think you’d love it. And I know you, so I’m right. I’m always right, of course, but this time I’m double right. I put it on to record for you. Maybe when you wake up you’ll be able to watch it. Tell Dany he’s wrong. We’ll probably be arguing over it until you do.”

Dan bit his lip, looking around again to make sure Kimi wasn’t really here and wondering again where the Finn might have gone to. He hoped this might be something to do with solving problems, rather than creating them. God knew they already had enough problems without Kimi creating more.

“I’m worried about him, you know,” Dan said. “I guess you are too, if you can hear me. He’s not himself and, yeah, himself isn’t the nicest person in the world, but at least he was capable of doing what he was expected to do. I’m not sure he is now.”

But he knew Kimi wouldn’t accept any help. Dan didn’t know what help he could be, but he wanted Kimi to know he was there if the Finn ever needed him, and option to _actually_ be used.

“I don’t know what to do with him, Seb,” Dan said. “I don’t even know where he is now, but maybe if he’s doing something, it’ll help him get better. Or it’ll make him ten times worse. No, I don’t think it’s worth the risk, but I can’t stop him, can I? How won’t listen to me. I think you’re the only person he’s ever listened to, and that’s only in some cases, isn’t it?”

It was the only sensible course of action to Dan, the only one he could see working. Sebastian had to wake up and then somehow convince Kimi to… what to do, Dan wasn’t sure, but convince Kimi that the way he was living now wasn’t going to do any of them any good.

Something on the machine beeped out of place and Dan looked up. He didn’t know what any of the wiggly lines on the screen meant but he knew the rhythm of the beeping and that wasn’t this.

“Nurse?”

Dan made to stand to get someone to figure out what was wrong with the machine, when the hand in his squeezed a little.

 

“What happened to you?”

Hanna wasn’t sure if it was her place to ask, but her new friend’s words had been bugging her. She knew how it felt for a little one to disappear. Hanna had assumed what Raffaela said she “lost” her baby… well, it was an easy enough thing to assume.

“How do you mean?” Raffaela asked, the smile on her face telling Hanna she had absolutely no idea what the German meant.

“You lost your son,” Hanna said, quietly. What if she had gotten this all wrong – or gotten it right the first time – and Raffaela’s son really was dead. She shouldn’t bring it up, but she’d already gone too far.

“Oh,” Raffaela said, the grin falling from her face. “Yeah, I did.”

Hanna gulped. She definitely shouldn’t be asking this but, before she could speak again or try to change the conversation, Raffaela spoke again.

“He was taken from me when he was a baby,” Raffaela said. “Kidnapped.”

Hanna brought her hand to her face, not sure what she could possibly say now to make this conversation any better.

“Was a long time ago,” Raffaela said, forcing a smile. “There is nothing I can do about it now.”

“You have to find him,” Hanna said. “If I thought _anything_ had ever happened to Emily-.”

“You do not know what you would do until it happens,” Raffaela said. “How long was Emily gone for? An hour? Maybe less. My little boy has been missing for _five years_ and I have done _everything_ to get him back. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You have to try,” Hanna said.

Raffaela shook her head. “I have been trying. But it is no use. It has been five years. If he’s still alive, he’ll have a new family now. New parents. And he’ll be happy. That’s how I want to think of him. Happy. The more I search, the more I am scared that I might find something else.”

“But he’s _you’re_ son,” Hanna said.

“But I’m not his mother,” Raffaela said. “You don’t understand. This is what’s best for him and moving on his what’s best for me. Please Hanna. Don’t carry on.”


	13. In which Kimi gets good news, Max gets another visitor, and Nico *tries* to get things sorted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I know nothing about medicine and all the things the nurse says is entirely made up...

Kimi was still a little shaken from his meeting with Verstappen as he drove back to Elevency. Nico had made things worse, he was sure of it. Nico must have made things ten times worse and Verstappen was going to come for them. He needed to meet with the German, make sure he knew about the situation and see what kind of resources they had against Verstappen.

Kimi had nothing. Or next to nothing. He’d always preferred to work alone and, if assistance was ever needed, Niki never hesitated to provide it. But he hadn’t been able to get through to his adoptive father since he’d decided against the Austrian’s plan to get Nico out, and he doubted there would be any help coming from that direction.

Nico had men. Nico had people who worked for him and people he trust and, whilst it wasn’t in Kimi’s nature to trust the German, they were going to have to come up with a way to keep Verstappen out for good, and people would be useful for that, he reasoned.

So going to the German was definitely on Kimi’s agenda. And getting the CCTV footage from the bar the night Alonso died. But first, most importantly, he needed to check up on Sebastian.

He didn’t trust the hospital. Not after everything that had happened with Lewis. If it were down to him, he would have been moved by now, but this was the type of injury the hospital specialised in, and he didn’t want to take the risk moving Sebastian to somewhere he might not have as good a quality of care. His solution had been to make sure Sebastian was with someone as often as possible, and leaving him alone in the morning had worried Kimi a little. The sensible part of his brain was telling Kimi that nothing would have happened, but the smallest chance that something terrible might have happened was too large a chance for him.

Dan was waiting in the waiting room outside Sebastian’s ward. He jumped up when Kimi came in and the Finn stopped.

“What’s happened?”

There were tears in Dan’s eyes but the Australian was grinning. He was _always_ grinning, so that didn’t necessarily mean something good had happened, but he wouldn’t be out here if nothing had happened, and he definitely wouldn’t be grinning if it was something bad and-

“Dan, what has happened?”

“He’s awake,” Dan whispered, barely able to believe it himself. “Seb woke up.”

 

Max hadn’t been too fond of his university halls room when he first moved in but, now, it was his favourite place to be. Leaving the room in the morning to go to university or to the coffee shop was becoming more and more difficult for him. He was pretty sure his hall mates thought he was dead, or he’d left. They never came in to check on him and he _knew_ he was an adult now and shouldn’t need checking up on but it still… it still hurt.

Which was why he jumped when someone knocked on his bedroom door. He should have been at university now but he’d decided to take the morning off. Maybe, he though, they’d come to bring him in, though he was sure they didn’t do that kind of thing at university.

Slowly, Max uncurled himself from where he was wrapped in his bedsheets and went to answer the door, not sure what to expect.

“Dad?”

Max stumbled back into the room, kicking over the waste paper basket and sending rubbish flying. Jos came into his son’s bedroom and shut the door behind him, watching Max stumble about like an idiot.

“What- I was just getting ready to leave,” Max mumbled, struggling to make himself look presentable.

“I heard you had yourself a little meeting with Rosberg,” Jos said, ignoring his son’s comment.

“I… I… he came to me,” Max said. “I did not go to him. Did not cause any trouble.”

“No, I’ve heard,” Jos said, crossing his arms and glaring at his son, waiting for Max to stop fidgeting and just sit down. Max got the point without having to be told and sat down on the unmade bed. “You are not causing trouble?”

Max shook his head, quickly. He wasn’t causing trouble at all. It was his father’s fault Rosberg had come to him. Not _his_.

“There might be a lot of trouble coming our way, Max,” Jos said.

“What have you done?” Max asked, quietly.

Jos smirked. “You assume it is me starting this?”

“No,” Max said, quickly. “I just thought… I didn’t know… sorry.”

Jos’ smirk stayed in place as he took a step towards his son, his hands buried in his coat pockets. Max gulped a little, standing. He couldn’t meet his father’s eye, his own gaze darting around the now familiar bedroom.

“Come here,” Jos said with a small sigh, pulling one hand out of his pocket to wrap an arm around his son. “Are you alright?”

Max nodded, taking a deep breath. He could feel his father’s other hand come out of his pocket when he was pulled closer to him and suddenly there was something pushed into his own hand.

He frowned down at the object as his father pulled away, his eyes widening in shock when he saw what it was.

“You need to look after yourself,” Jos said.

Max shook his head, staring at the object in his hands. Jos had a hand on his son’s shoulder, squeezing it gently in a way that was supposed to be encouraging but was just making Max’s legs turn to jelly.

“I can do this,” Max mumbled, looking up at his father and expecting the lecture now about how he was letting the family down. But Jos was still smiling and Max just didn’t understand that.

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Jos said. “I just want to make sure you’re ok. You can protect yourself if you need to. I’ve shown you how to defend yourself. You’re a good little fighter. You can do this, Max.”

“But… he’s my boss’ boyfriend,” Max spluttered. He couldn’t kill _anyone_ , but least of all his boss’ boyfriend.

Jos frowned a little and Max took a deep breath, expecting an outburst of some kind, but then the smile return and there was a look in his father’s eyes that scared Max more than any lecture could.

“I’m not asking you to kill him, Max,” Jos said. “Just stay alive yourself. You get back to studying.”

Max nodded, still a little in shock, and watched his father leave the room. He didn’t know what his dad was about to do, but it definitely wasn’t good, and it was probably going to get him into even more trouble than he was already in. Maybe he was going to need something to defend himself with.

 

Nico couldn’t focus. He was supposed to be trying to find Lewis, or Toto, or whoever could have killed Alonso, and he couldn’t do any of those things. Lewis and Toto had disappeared off of the face of the earth and he didn’t even know _where_ to start with Alonso.

The Spaniard didn’t really have any friends. Nico had quickly come to that conclusion after doing a little bit of snooping. He’d come to the country about five years ago and didn’t seem to have made an effort to do anything but work. At work, he’d been successful, but that was it. No friends, no enemies. Just regulars.

That didn’t really help Nico much, and he knew it, but delving into trying to find something out about Alonso had calmed Nico down a bit. The German knew this whoever did this didn’t do it because they had a grudge against Alonso or something. This was to do with him and Kimi. If it wasn’t Kimi who left Alonso on Nico’s doorstep – and Nico hadn’t really ruled that out yet – then it was someone trying to come between the two of them again.

Lewis and Toto sprang to mind straight away, of course, but Toto hadn’t been seen since before the attack and Lewis had been at the hospital that night, bringing Sebastian in. He hadn’t really had much time to kill a guy whilst he was doing that.

And that left exactly zero suspects. Besides Kimi.

Nico groaned, frustrated, and picked up his glass of wine, only to find it empty. He screwed his eyes shut. Things were just getting better and better. Nico knew he probably shouldn’t have drunk so much, but the bottle had been there and now… now it wasn’t.

He stood, wobbling a little when the room started to spin, but his head soon settled down and he went into the kitchen to go and get some water to try and clear his head. Maybe that was why he couldn’t actually come up with anything.

Maybe it was just somebody working for Toto. Nico didn’t know how many people the Austrian had working for him and it couldn’t have been too difficult for something like this to be organised. If that was the case, though, Toto would have needed someone here to make sure everything was going smoothly. The months that had stretched out between now and when the attack had taken place would have been too long for him to wait. There would have been another attack, Nico was sure. Something else to add to the split. No, Nico was pretty sure Toto wasn’t behind this.

The Austrian would probably have been some help if he was about, though. Nico knew he shouldn’t have relied on Toto so much. It had made him vulnerable and could easily have ended in disaster when Lewis had been “attacked”. Now Nico was relying too much on Kevin, giving his second in command too much to betray him with. Maybe he should go and check up on him, Nico thought. Make sure everything was ok there-

He needed to focus on the tasks at hand. He trusted Kevin and the last thing he needed was to cause another problem that didn’t need to exist.

 

Sebastian was awake.

“There are still a lot of problems,” the nurse tried to explain. Kimi really was trying to pay attention, but all he couldn’t focus. He was just relieved. Sebastian was awake. He was alive and he was going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Everything was going to be ok. “Mr Räikkönen?”

“Yes?”

The nurse sighed and smiled, genuinely happy for him.

“There are still a lot of problems,” the nurse began again.

“Like, his memory and things,” Kimi said.

“Well, yes,” the nurse said. “But there will be some other side effects too. Sebastian was in a coma for a long time and during that time a lot of brain functions effectively restarted. It will take a while for Sebastian to regain proper control of his body. Movement of legs, arms, fingers, that kind of thing won’t be possible for a while. We’re sure there wasn’t any damage to Sebastian’s spinal cord so it most likely won’t be permanent damage and physiotherapy should solve the problem, but it will take a lot of time and it’ll depend on Sebastian. Speech is another thing we shouldn’t expect for a while. There is the possibility of personality changes. Sebastian might not be the same person as he was when he went under.”

The nurse’s smile had changed from a happy one to an apologetic one and the knot in Kimi’s stomach tightened even more.

“But he’s ok,” Kimi said, eventually. “He’s alive. He’s not going to-.”

“He’s not going to die, no Mr Räikkönen,” the nurse said.

Kimi sat back in his chair, the relief clear in his face. Sebastian wasn’t going to die. It would take a lot of time and a lot of patience but he was going to be alright. Kimi would be able to prove to him how much he’d changed.

“Can I go in and see him?” Kimi asked.

“He’s sleeping at the moment,” the nurse said.

“Sleeping,” Kimi said. He wanted to laugh but it didn’t really seem right just now. “He has been sleeping for months.”

“I know Mr Räikkönen,” the nurse said. “But consciousness is going to be very short for a while now. It’ll come in drips and drabs for a couple of days.”

“Alright,” Kimi said. “But can I still go in?”

The nurse bit her lip. Clearly this wasn’t strictly allowed, but Kimi wasn’t leaving the hospital until he’d seen Sebastian. Awake or not, he wanted to see his boyfriend. He wasn’t going to believe this was true until he’d seen it for himself.

“I’ll go and get a doctor,” the nurse said.

Kimi nodded and let the nurse go, holding his head in his hands and taking a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. This was all over. Or not. The state Sebastian was in, this wasn’t going to be all over for a long time, but it was going to be over someday, and it was going to be over the way Kimi wanted it to be over.

“He squeezed my hand,” Dan said, quietly. The Australian was sitting beside Kimi, not wanting to leave him.

“He what?” Kimi asked, looking up at him.

“He squeezed my hand,” Dan said again, nodding. “I was holding it and then the machine started making a weird noise, so I tried to go and get the nurse, and he squeezed my hand.”

“Must have imagined it,” Kimi said, dismissing it. Sebastian couldn’t have squeezed his hand. They’d both heard what the nurse said and Kimi trusted a medical practitioner a whole lot more than he trusted Dan. The Australian must have just made it up, trying to comfort himself like he had been all along.

“He squeezed my hand,” Dan said again. “It was only gentle, but I know he did it.”

“Have heard what the nurse said,” Kimi said, waving after the nurse.

“They haven’t assessed him properly,” Dan said. “When he’s awake properly they’ll see.”

“Do not lie to yourself Dan,” Kimi said, standing when the nurse came back in. “Know you are trying to just make me and yourself feel better, but it is not good.”

Dan watched Kimi smile to the nurse and follow her as she went back to Sebastian’s private room. He stood, uncertainly, then shook his head and left the hospital.


	14. In which Kimi sees Sebastian, Nico and Jenson are worried, and Daniil tries to help

Sebastian looked the same as he always did. Kimi wasn’t sure, but it looked like there were less wires sticking into him now. But that was it. He was just sleeping peacefully, lying unnaturally straight and still. Sebastian didn’t sleep like that. His Sebastian liked to sleep curled up a little, on his side and facing a window if possible.

“He is definitely going to be ok, though,” Kimi said. He didn’t really believe it. It had only been this morning they hadn’t even known if Sebastian was going to make it through this. Things couldn’t change so quickly, could they?

The nurse nodded again. “Would you like me to leave you with him?” she asked.

Kimi nodded, taking his usual seat at Sebastian’s bedside.

“Alright,” the nurse said. “You have the call button if you need us.”

She hurried out, knowing Kimi preferred to be left alone when he was with Sebastian.

Kimi took a deep breath, rubbing his jaw. He didn’t know what to do now. Wait for Sebastian to wake up?

The meeting with Verstappen began to play on his mind again as he waited for Sebastian’s eyes to flicker open like they usually did. Kimi wanted to go and check out Alonso’s security cameras, to get that whole mess out of the way. He needed to prove to Nico he wasn’t behind this and get the German’s trust back. Or as much of the trust he had ever had. But they needed to focus on Verstappen first. If his threat had been true, they had a lot more problems to face than a bit of suspicion.

Alonso was dead, and finding his killer wouldn’t bring him back. That could wait for now.

“I’m going to get this all sorted out though,” Kimi told Sebastian, but the German gave him no answer. “I’ll get this all sorted out, and then we’ll leave. I’ll make sure everything’s ok here whilst you’re getting better and when you’re better we’ll move away. Somewhere none of this actually matters.”

There would be another hospital that would be able to help Sebastian’s recovery. The world was a lot bigger than Elevency, and Kimi knows it. There would be places where things that happen in Elevency didn’t actually matter, and there was bound to be somewhere like that where Sebastian could get the help he needed.

But first he needed to sort this out.

 

“You know what I really think would help Felipinho out,” Rob said, passing a plate to Felipe to dry up.

“What?” Felipe said. This had better be a good suggestion and not a joke like Rob kept coming up with.

“You and him going down to the house alone,” Rob said. He was still trying to convince himself there was nothing he had to worry about but, the longer they waited here in Elevency, the longer Räikkönen and Rosberg and the police had to find out what Felipinho knew.

“Thought we agreed we are not going to do this,” Felipe said. “We are family and we are going to start again _as a family_.”

“I know,” Rob said. “But… I just thought it would help with Felipinho.”

He shouldn’t be using Felipinho’s new found clinginess like this. It would only make Felipe worry about his clinginess even more. But if it made Felipe take himself away from here, he didn’t think it would really be that bad a thing.

“You say Felipinho will grow out of it eventually,” Felipe said. “And I believe you. Now get all these silly ideas out of your head.”

He smiled up at Rob and Rob did his best to smile back, but even Felipe could tell there was something not right there.

“What’s wrong?” Felipe asked. He couldn’t really be worried about Felipinho getting too clingy with him, could he? It had been Rob who had told him he had been worried about nothing.

“Nothing,” Rob said, shaking his head and returning to the washing up. “I just… I hate it here. I hate being here. I just want to get away. To protect you and Pea.”

“I know,” Felipe said. “But it will not be much longer. They will have sorted it all out soon and then we can go, yes?”

“Yeah,” Rob said, nodding. Hopefully soon really did mean soon. But he had a feeling this was going to take a lot longer than he wanted it to.

“You know,” Felipe said, slowly. “Have the house to ourselves. Can think of some more interesting things to do than wash up…”

He grinned mischievously, dropping the tea towel onto the kitchen counter, but Rob just laughed and shook his head.

“Not with your head still like it is,” Rob said, dumping a handful of spoons into the bowl (Felipinho’s new favourite thing to do was dig up worms in the garden. They’d brought him his own spade, and then his own set of toy spoons when he insisted on spoons, but he still used the ones from the kitchen draw).

“My head is fine,” Felipe said, pouting. “Do not know why you always say it is not.”

“Because it isn’t, sunshine,” Rob said. “You still have to be careful. Just because you think you’re ok now, doesn’t mean you really are.”

“Think I know my own body better than you do,” Felipe said.

“But you don’t,” Rob cried. “You think you’re fine, but you’re not. You’re just going to get yourself hurt again.”

“Rob, do not know why you are acting like this,” Felipe said, shaking his head. “Am fine. Have been fine for ages. The doctors all say I am. I _feel_ fine. Why can you not accept that I am ok?”

“Because I’m scared,” Rob cried, rubbing his fingers through his hair and leaving little bubbles clinging to the strands. “I am scared Felipe. Scared of losing you.”

“Are not going to lose me,” Felipe said, laughing at how worried Rob was getting over something that wasn’t a problem anymore. “Am not going anywhere, ok. Stop worrying.”

 

Nico jumped when the front door slammed shut, but relaxed a little when Jenson called in that it was only him. He’d been sure the Brit had scheduled himself to be working the entire afternoon but it wasn’t really a surprise Jenson had come home. If there weren’t many people in he would leave the café early, especially when he knew Nico was… stressed.

“Any luck?” Jenson asked, coming into the living room. His kissed Nico on the cheek before collapsing on the sofa to find something good to watch on the TV. “Damn, I left the cake in the hallway. Nico?”

“You brought cake,” Nico asked, avoiding the question because _no_ he hadn’t had any luck _again_ , and he was still a little tipsy from the wine he’d drunk that afternoon. That, he had concluded, had not been a good idea, and he wasn’t doing it again.

“Yeah,” Jenson said. “I thought we could both use some cheering up. It’s in the hall, if you want to go and get it.”

“We’ll have it after dinner,” Nico said, leaving what he was doing to come and sit next to Jenson. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” Jenson said. “It’s getting quieter and quieter every week, though. I’m getting a little worried.”

“You will be fine,” Nico insisted. Jenson had to be fine. The café felt like an important part of the community, or it had done before. Nico had been visiting there less and less now that he had Jenson at home with him. There was no need to visit for a sneaky meeting, and Nico had been busy with his own work.

“I hope so,” Jenson said. He couldn’t have Nico’s optimism though. Things had been going slowly for a while now. Things always picked up on the weekends but it wasn’t really enough to cover the loss of custom he’d been having in the week. The profit margin was getting smaller and smaller and Jenson wouldn’t be surprised if they were barely breaking even at the end of the month. “Anyway, how have you been?”

“Good,” Nico lied. He hadn’t gotten any closer to getting anything done and he was beginning to wonder why he even bothered doing any of this when all he did was go around in circles.

“Any sign of Lewis?” Jenson asked. “Or Toto?”

Nico shook his head. He’d just about given up all hope of ever finding either of them. Even if he did find them, he didn’t know what he would say to them. Or _do_ to them. All he’d wanted was for Lewis to hand himself in for the hit and run but, now he’d had more time to think about it, that wasn’t enough. And when he couldn’t even do _that_ , surely he deserved a harsher punishment.

“You’ll get them eventually,” Jenson said. “They can’t hide forever.”

Nico nodded again. It would be no use explaining to Jenson how hopeless everything was.

“So,” Jenson said, when things got a little too quiet for his liking. “Dinner?”

 

“What’s wrong?” Daniil asked when Dan arrived back at the flat they shared, looking like a kicked puppy. He hadn’t exactly been his usual cheerful self for months since Sebastian’s accident, but usually tried to hide it. “Has something happened to Sebastian?”

“He woke up,” Dan said, quietly, standing in the doorway. He didn’t really know what to do now. He should have been at the hospital, with Kimi and Sebastian, but he knew he wasn’t welcome there at the moment. He could go down to the Halfway Houses and volunteer like he usually did, but he was in no fit state of mind to do that and all he really wanted to do was burst into tears.

“That’s brilliant news,” Daniil said, grinning, but the lopsided smile dropped from his face when Dan shook his head. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Dan said, heading into the kitchen. He hadn’t eaten all day and wondering around aimlessly for hours had given him a bit of an appetite.

“Is not nothing,” Daniil said, following him into the kitchen. “Nothing would not make you look like that.”

“Just leave it, Dany,” Dan warned. He didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Daniil had been a brilliant support over the past couple of months but some things Dan liked to keep to himself.

“No,” Daniil said. “You are upset and I want to make you feel better.”

“My best friend nearly fucking died, how do you want me to be?” Dan snapped.

Both men froze, staring at one another. Daniil had never seen Dan raise his voice like that and Dan had never thought he would.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said.

“It’s ok,” Daniil said. “Know you are hurting but you need to tell me what has happened, Dan, or I cannot help. This isn’t just about Sebastian, is it?”

Dan shook his head, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes in the hope that he might be able to stop himself crying. Daniil sighed and crossed the kitchen, putting his hands on his friend’s shoulders.

“What has happened?” he asked again, looking into Dan’s eyes when the Australian moved his hands away from his face. “Is it something Räikkönen has said? Or done? Tell me Dan and I will try to make it better.”

“Just leave it, Dany,” Dan said, softly this time. “I’m fine. I can look after myself.”

“If he is hurting you,” Daniil began, but he stopped before he could finish, not really knowing how he would end the threat. Dan laughed weakly and slipped out of his friend’s grip, going to the fridge to see if there was anything he could eat. Daniil watched him prepare himself some food, his face burning and his mouth very dry. Dan didn’t seem to notice, which made the embarrassment a little more bearable.

“You know you can talk to me, don’t you Dan,” Daniil said, his voice a little higher than he wanted it to be.

“Sure I do,” Dan said, but Daniil knew it was going to take more than that for the Australian to open up to him.


	15. In which Kimi finds out the truth and Hanna decides to help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That should read: In which Pea is in demand.

Visiting hours were over before Sebastian woke up and Kimi, as much as he tried to get the doctors to allow him to stay, was kicked out of the ward. What if it was just a fluke, Kimi thought as he got back into his car. What if it was a one off and Sebastian wasn’t going to be ok? He wasn’t going to wake up again?

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking like that, but he couldn’t help it. He needed something to take his mind off of the negative thoughts but all Kimi really wanted to do was find somewhere to get pissed. That would distract his brain enough, he thought. It wasn’t exactly the responsible thing to do – it was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place – but right now he didn’t care. Going to _find_ some place to get drunk wasn’t really going to be easy, what with Alonso’s closed-

Kimi needed to deal with that. Find out who had killed Alonso. It would be easier to put that off until after Verstappen had been sorted out but, whilst he was waiting for the invader to make a move, he may as well do something productive.

He needed the security footage from Alonso’s. The bar’s CCTV had always been shit, but it would give him somewhere to begin. More than likely, the police would already have the footage, but whether they had actually _done_ anything with it was a different matter. Kimi phoned ahead on his way to the station. He had a contact in the force who would give him what he wanted for a price, and sure enough, the footage was waiting for him when he arrived.

“We did not think you were working on this,” Arrivabene, Kimi’s contact, said when he arrived.

“I wasn’t,” Kimi said, pocketing the tape and turning to go.

“Kimi,” Arrivabene called, making the Finn turn around. “You are ok, aren’t you? We are all thinking of you and Sebastian here.”

“These things happen in Elevency,” Kimi said with a shrug. “If I were to stop working every time something like this happens, nothing would get done.”

He nodded to the police man before leaving the station. He didn’t know how useful the tape was going to be, but it was a start, and it would take his mind off of Sebastian for the night.

 

Hanna fell, exhausted, onto the sofa after putting Emily to bed. She had already made sure twice the chain was on the door and she’d already phoned somebody to come and change the locks in the morning. She hadn’t managed to get out from Emily how exactly the child had managed to get away, but she wasn’t taking any risks. It wasn’t happening again. She didn’t know what she would have done without Raffaela today. Anything could have happened to Emily. It was exactly what she needed to prove she was in no fit state to be a mother.

But she couldn’t imagine not having Emily anymore. She couldn’t imagine giving up trying to find her if Raffaela hadn’t brought her back here.

Her friend had asked her to give up the conversation, and she had, but she still didn’t understand why Raffaela wasn’t still trying to get her son back. It had been five years. And five years was a long time, Hanna knew that, especially for a little one, but that didn’t mean she should just stop trying to find him.

So what if he was happy now? He could be happy with Raffaela. Hanna _knew_ her friend was going to be a good mum, a better mum than she ever would be to Emily _or_ to bump. Raffaela deserved to be happy too, and whoever had taken her son away from her didn’t deserve to see the smile on the little boy’s face that should have been for his mother.

So that was it, Hanna decided. She was going to find Raffaela’s son for her. She didn’t know _how_ exactly. If Raffaela had been searching for five years and couldn’t find anything, it was unlikely Hanna was going to do any better, but she had to try. Raffaela was exhausted from trying and scared of failing, Hanna understood that. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do what Raffaela couldn’t.

 

Kimi was right. The CCTV in the bar was awful, and outside was even worse. Kimi watched as blurred people cleaned up behind the bar. One of the blurred figures he assumed was Alonso, whilst the other must have been a member of staff. The member of staff was sent into the back room, leaving Alonso alone, when a customer came in. The man kept his back to the lone camera in the bar area, but it was clear Alonso didn’t like him, dragging up out of the bar after only a couple of seconds. Kimi flicked through the tapes he had playing, trying to find the one that showed outside the bar area to see if that was any better.

The camera there was any better, but Alonso seemed to have the man up against a wall and Kimi couldn’t see him at all. Alonso was angry though, that much was clear and, whoever it was, probably had something to do with his death. Kimi didn’t doubt that for even a second.

Unless Alonso beat the shit out of this guy now, he thought.

Before the bar tender could raise a fist, he stopped and looked around to something just out of shot. Stepping away from the not so potential customer, Alonso crouched down and lifted a child onto his hip. A very familiar child.

Felipinho Massa.

All three of them disappeared back inside again and Kimi returned to the grainy, useless CCTV footage from inside the bar. It was no use. There was no way Kimi could make out the other person’s face.

All three went into the back room, but the not so potential customer returned, alone, to the main bar area. He spoke to the member of staff, who was still cleaning up, and the girl left, leaving Alonso, the Massa kid, and the not so potential customer alone.

Kimi flicked through the different CCTV cameras, trying to get the shot of the three people back. By the time he’d found them, they were in Alonso’s small car park, where the not so potential customer was pushing Alonso into the back of his car.

It was him. He was the one who had killed Alonso. Kimi needed to find out who the girl he’d sent away was, see what she had to say about the suspect. But, first, he needed to speak to Felipinho Massa.

 

There was someone knocking at the door. Rob couldn’t tell how long they had been knocking by the time it woke him up, but they sounded impatient. Felipe, unsurprisingly, was still asleep beside him. Rob was sure it would take nothing more than an actual apocalypse to wake the Brazilian once he was asleep, so it didn’t surprise him.

Rob sighed and closed his eyes again. Maybe whoever it was would go away when nobody answered. It couldn’t be anything that couldn’t wait until morning anyway. Unless someone in one of the houses had a problem…

Rob groaned a little. If there was a problem, he would need to go and solve it. There was nobody on the emergency line tonight, the calls going straight through to his phone, and, if they hadn’t been able to wake him on that, knocking on the door was the next best option.

Still a half asleep, Rob detached himself from Felipe and got out of bed, pins and needles running up the arm which had been trapped under Felipe. He rubbed it as he stumbled down the stairs, doing his best to not wake Felipinho, and opened the door.

“Räikkönen?”

It took Rob a couple of seconds to get his brain into gear, in which time Räikkönen was already in the house and making himself comfortable in the living room.

“Has something happened to Hanna?” Rob asked, following him into his own house. “Is she alright?”

“This is not about Hanna,” Räikkönen said. “I take it you have heard about Alonso.”

It was clear on Rob’s face he had heard about Alonso. He froze as soon as he figured out what this was really about and, no matter how quickly he tried to recover, Kimi knew he knew what had happened.

“Alonso?” Rob asked.

He should have insisted Felipe and Felipinho went when he suggested it.

“I know you know what happened?” Räikkönen said.

Rob considered denying it, but what could would it do. Räikkönen wouldn’t be here if he didn’t know Felipinho had seen it all. Denying it would only make things worse for the three of them.

“Come back in the morning,” Rob said. “Please. Felipinho’s sleeping.”

“Who killed him?” Kimi demanded. “Because, whoever it was, is trying to cause a lot of trouble between me and Nico, and I do not think you would like that, would you?”

“I don’t know who did it,” Rob hissed, suddenly very conscious of waking Felipinho up. “Please. He’s asleep.”

“Then you had better go and wake him up, hadn’t you?” Kimi said.

“He’s a five year old boy,” Rob said. “He’s scared enough about what happened without being woken up in the middle of the night to speak to some stranger.”

“You know, if it was not for Alonso, I would probably not have believed your story about the boy’s mother,” Kimi said. “Does Felipe know this? Was such a good friend to him, but he is keeping Alonso’s murderer a secret? Or…” The way Rob’s eyes widened made Kimi smirk. “Or does he not know what happened?”

Kimi had always known the two of them were liars – they had been lying for nearly five years about being together, after all – but he had never thought they would lie to one another, especially not about something like this.

“Kimi, please,” Rob said. This couldn’t be happening, not when they were so close to getting away and starting everything again. “Felipe can’t find out.” This would kill them. Felipe had already been so close to leaving when Felipinho’s mother had almost taken him away. This would be the last straw.

Kimi took a step back and nodded.

“You bring him to me nine o’clock in the morning,” Kimi said. “And I will not tell Felipe. But if you are not there, if you try to run, he will find out.”

“But, Pea has school,” Rob pointed out.

“Is up to you,” Kimi said. “What do you think is more important?”


	16. In which Daniil tries to help and Rob goes along with the plan...

Daniil was already up and busy in the kitchen when Dan got up.

The Australian had been lying awake in bed for hours but, with nothing to do today, he’d felt no reason to get up, listening to his younger flat mate bump and bang about in the kitchen.

Dan tried to force himself to smile when he eventually got around to getting up, but it just wasn’t happening today, and he knew he didn’t need to pretend in front of Daniil. His friend saw straight through him anyway.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Daniil said, apologetically, when Dan came into the kitchen to make himself some coffee.

“It’s fine, I was already awake,” Dan said, not turning to Daniil. If he had been facing the Russian, he would have noticed the nervous way Daniil was watching him. “What are you doing today?”

“Umm… I do not have anything to do,” Daniil said. “Do you want me to go with you to see Sebastian?”

“I’m not going today,” Dan said.

He didn’t know if he was going to be welcome. He wasn’t sure _why_ that bothered him so much. He hadn’t been welcome there before, when he was sure Kimi resented the fact he existed, let alone the fact he cared so much about Sebastian. But now it was different. Sebastian was awake and any comfort he had been able to provide for Kimi wasn’t needed anymore. It wasn’t _wanted_.

“But he is awake,” Daniil said, a little confused. “Think he would like you there.”

“He’s not _awake_ awake,” Dan tried, and failed, to explain. He didn’t want to think about what kind of state his friend would be in. There was a chance the nurses had gotten it wrong. After all, Sebastian _had_ squeezed Dan’s hand. Dan _knew_ he hadn’t imagined that. “It’s going to be hard.”

“Then you need to be there,” Daniil said. “Maybe it will be hard, but that doesn’t mean you do not go. You _have_ to go. You have to help Sebastian and you have to help Räikkönen and you have to-.”

“Since when was it my job to help Kimi?” Dan snapped, the anger from the night before back. “It’s not. It’s not my job and he doesn’t want it to be my job and I want nothing to do with him. Why don’t you keep your thoughts to yourself in future, alright?”

He left his coffee making and marched back out of the kitchen and out of the flat. He didn’t know where he was going but he knew he wanted to be alone. Daniil had no idea what was going on and maybe he was trying to help but Dan didn’t want it. Dan wasn’t the one that was helped, not if he could do anything to stop it. He didn’t want his flat mate’s sympathy and he didn’t want to be told what to do. He just wanted his friend back and his life back to normal.

 

“Would you mind running an errand?” Rob asked, kissing Felipe on the cheek as his boyfriend made Felipinho’s breakfast.

“What kind of an errand?” Felipe asked, suspiciously. Rob didn’t even like him leaving the house to go and get shopping without him being there.

“I need something collecting from the post office,” Rob lied. He hadn’t slept at all since the visit from Kimi, trying to work out how he could get Felipinho to the meeting without Felipe finding out.

“Can you not go and get it?” Felipe asked, buttering Felipinho’s toast.

“No,” Rob said. “The woman at the desk is really funny with me. She doesn’t like me. Please, Felipe, it’s important.”

“Fine,” Felipe said, putting the toast in front of Felipinho and hoping his son would actually eat it without complaint this time. “You can drop me off after we have taken this one to school.”

“Actually, I was thinking I could drop you off before and then take Pea to school,” Rob said, slowly. This plan had to work. He didn’t really have an alternate one.

“What is that important that I need to be at the post office _that_ early?” Felipe said with a laugh.

“I can’t say,” Rob said. “It’s not for me. It’s for one of the guests. And confidentiality and all that…”

He didn’t like lying to Felipe. Felipe had already been through enough and he should have been able to trust Rob. Lying to him was only going to destroy that trust, but Rob didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. He was _protecting_ Felipe.

He was not controlling him. Nothing Valtteri said was true.

“Alright,” Felipe said, knowing he wasn’t going to get anything out of Rob if it was some confidentiality thing that was standing in the way. Rob took all that kind of thing very seriously. “But make sure he actually manages to put his lunch box on the trolley today.”

“I _always_ remember to put my lunch box on the trolley,” Felipinho said through a mouthful of toast. “It’s _you_ who doesn’t, Daddy.”

“Shush you. Eat your breakfast,” Felipe said with a grin, ruffling Felipinho’s hair.

Rob grinned back, starting his lunch making duties. This had to work. They were moving on from all that. Soon they would be gone, on their fresh start, and they didn’t need this looming over them.

 

Max felt as if all eyes were on him as he walked into the coffee shop in the morning. Everyone _had_ to know he was carrying a weapon. There was something wrong with the way Jenson smiled at him, the way Carlos patted him on the back and started a conversation about something he’d seen on the TV the day before. Max couldn’t really hear properly, feeling as if he was in a little bubble, a fish tank, whilst everyone else looked in on him.

He hadn’t wanted to bring the weapon to work, but he knew his dad would find out. He wouldn’t be surprised if his dad walked in and did a spot check at some point in the day. Max _knew_ he was just trying to protect his son and, after Rosberg’s little chat, Max appreciated that, but the teenager couldn’t help but feel like this wasn’t the best way to do that. What if Rosberg came in and accused him of trying to attack him. Trying to start the fight. Then there would be _reason_ for Rosberg to attack him, and Max was one hundred per cent sure he didn’t have it in him to hurt the German. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“Max, are you alright?” Carlos asked, when he realised he’d been talking non-stop for ten minutes now and the younger man hadn’t given any kind of reaction at all.

Max almost jumped out of his skin when Carlos placed a hand on his shoulder, so lost in his own thoughts he hadn’t heard his friend speak.

Carlos just laughed and took his hand away.

“Sorry,” Max mumbled. “What did you say?”

“Are you alright?” Carlos asked, looking concerned. “Are you ill?”

It was far too hot to be wearing a jumper as thick as Max’s was and, now that he thought about it, the teenager did look a little pale.

“I’m fine,” Max insisted. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

The shop had only just opened and there wasn’t anybody to serve or clean up after yet.

“No, you’re good to go and sit in the backroom for a bit,” Jenson said, also watching Max closely. “We’ll call if we need you.”

Max looked suspiciously between the two men, sure one or both of them have to know he’s carrying a weapon, but they just smiled and got back to work restocking the shelves they kept behind the counter.

The teenager decided it was probably better to go into the backroom like he’d been told. The less time he spent with the others whilst he felt like he was screaming “guilty”, the better. He sat at the table where the workers could have their breaks, the weapon he had stored in his waist band digging into his stomach.

He just needed to make it through the day without accidentally killing someone. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? His dad managed it almost every day. Just one day…

 

“Be a good boy at school, ok?” Felipe said, kissing the top of Felipinho’s head before getting out of the car. “Are going to pick me up, or do you trust me enough to be able to walk back to the house by myself?”

“Felipe,” Rob said with a sigh. Why couldn’t the Brazilian understand that he was just trying to protect him?

“Is fine,” Felipe said, quickly leaning in the driver’s side window and stealing a kiss from his boyfriend. “Will wait here for you, ok?”

“Love you,” Rob said.

“Love you too,” Felipe said with a cheeky grin, heading up the path to the post office.

Rob watched him disappear inside the building before sighing again and turning to Felipinho, who was fiddling with the buttons on his polo shirt.

“Right,” Rob said. “Pea, do you remember the bad man?”

That immediately got the child’s attention. He looked up quickly, his eyes wide, and nodded.

“It’s ok,” Rob said, gently, laughing weakly as he tried to settle him. “But we have to go somewhere now so a man can ask about the bad man.”

“But what about school?” Felipinho asked. “And I thought the police already had the bad man. You said he was going to be in jail forever and ever.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rob said. “But they think they might have got the _wrong_ person. And now they just need to speak to you to make sure they haven’t.”

“So the bad man isn’t even in prison?” Felipinho asked.

“We don’t know, Pea,” Rob said. “But they’re going to find out as soon as possible. With your help.”

 

Kimi hadn’t had much sleep, but he was already up and waiting for his visitors. He hoped this wouldn’t take long, and then he could go straight to the hospital and sit with Sebastian. He hoped he would wake up this time, even for a few moments. Kimi wanted Sebastian to know he was there, even if he couldn’t quite remember who Kimi was.

At nine o’clock exactly, there was a knock at the door. Kimi waited a couple of moments to answer it and, though he wouldn’t show it on his face, he was relieved to find it was Rob and the Massa child. He didn’t have time for nonsense right now.

Felipinho looked up at Kimi, then turned to Rob, but the Brit just nudged him into the house, closing the door behind him.

“You came then?” Kimi said.

“He’s not a police man,” Felipinho said. “Is he?”

“He’s going to find out if they have the right bad guy, mate, don’t worry,” Rob said, hoping Kimi would catch on to the lies.

Kimi raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Felipinho looked up at Kimi again, Rob’s hands on his shoulders. He definitely _wasn’t_ a police man. He was the one that had made Felipinho lie to Rob about going with the lady when Rob had shouted at him.

“It’s ok, Pea,” Rob said again. “They just need to make sure they have the person who tried to hurt Daddy’s friend.”

“The bad man,” Felipinho clarified, still looking up at the Finn. He wasn’t entirely convinced Kimi wasn’t a bad man himself, but if he was going to find the _really_ bad man, then Felipinho was going to have to do as he said.

“Why don’t you tell Kimi what you told me?” Rob said, when neither of the two of them said anything.

“There was a bad man,” Felipinho said. “And he had a gun and he shot Daddy’s friend. But Rob said Daddy’s friend is ok. Isn’t he Rob?”

Felipinho turned and looked up at Rob, smiling a little.

“Yeah,” Rob said, ruffling Felipinho’s hair a little before he sat down. Kimi hadn’t offered him a seat, but he felt like they were going to be here a while.

“Why were you with Alo- Daddy’s friend?” Kimi said, slowly. He didn’t like the way Felipinho was looking at him. It made him uncomfortable.

“I was running away from the lady,” Felipinho said. “She pushed me down the stairs and then I said I hated her so she hit me so then I ran away and I just wanted to go home to Daddy and Rob but I didn’t know the way and I bumped into Daddy’s friend. He was with the bad man. They were outside a grown up place. I think Daddy’s friend wanted to hit the bad man. He should have done it, and then the bad man wouldn’t have been able to put us in the car and he wouldn’t have been able to hurt Daddy’s friend.”

If Felipinho hadn’t bumped into Daddy’s friend, he probably would have hurt the bad man, he thought. So it was _his_ fault Daddy’s friend got hurt, like it was his fault Emily had fallen in the pond and it was his fault Daddy got hit by the car.

“What did the bad man look like?” Kimi asked.

Felipinho stuck his thumb in his mouth, his bottom lip starting to wobble. All he did was get people hurt…

“Felipinho?” Rob urged. “You need to tell him.”

“Don’t remember,” Felipinho lied.

“Yeah you do,” Rob said. “What did you tell me the other day?”

“Felipinho,” Kimi said, crouching down in front of the child. “I know it is scary, but you need to tell me everything that happened, so that I can find the bad man and make sure he doesn’t hurt anybody else. You have to be brave and tell me, ok?”

Felipinho nodded, taking his thumb out of his mouth. “It was a black man,” he said, quietly, not looking Kimi in the eye. “He had poofy hair and a nasty smile.”

Well, that narrowed it down, Kimi thought.

“What else?” Kimi said.

Felipinho shrugged. How else was he supposed to say the man looked? He couldn’t remember anything else.

Kimi sighed. He was going to have to do this another way. Ask the girl who had been working there and maybe get a list of suspects. He was barely any further than he had been looking at the CCTV. Nobody sprang to mind. Nobody who would want to cause any trouble…

Kimi knew he shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but it was somewhere to start.

“Wait there,” he said, standing and going into the office.

It couldn’t really be Lewis. Lewis had been with Sebastian that night, after all, but it wouldn’t hurt to eliminate him from his enquires.

Kimi found a photo in one of his files and returned to the living room, handing the piece of paper to Felipinho.

“Is that the bad man?”

Felipinho frowned at the picture for a couple of moments, then his eyes widened and he nodded. That was him.


	17. In which Rob is an excellent parent, Hanna has a plan, and Kimi deals with shit...

“Are you absolutely sure, Pea?” Rob asked. His throat had gone dry as soon as he saw who was in the picture. There was no way it could be Lewis. The coincidence was just too much. He knew he’d already suspected him, but that was just because Lewis was already in Rob’s bad books. It wasn’t as if he’d _actually_ thought it could be him.

But Felipinho nodded. It was definitely the bad man. He didn’t have the nasty smile in that picture, but it was still him.

“Does this mean you have the right person?” Felipinho asked looking from the photo to Kimi.

“It means we can sort this all out,” Kimi promised, taking the photo away again. “Thank you.”

“Can we go to school now?” Felipinho asked, turning to Rob. He was going to be late, and the teacher was going to be cross about that.

“Yeah,” Rob said, standing. His eyes were on Kimi though, waiting for some kind of confirmation that this was all over. When the Finn didn’t react, Rob took it to mean that they were excused, and he started to shepherd Felipinho out of the house. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Rob?” Kimi called after them as they made to leave.

Rob rolled his eyes, his back to the Finn, before turning around.

“Thank you.”

Rob nodded quickly, before prompting Felipinho back out of the house and into the car. Felipe would be wondering where he had gotten to, if he wasn’t still arguing with the post woman about the imaginary package. He should probably hurry up and get back.

Rob strapped Felipinho into the back seat of the car before climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Remember, Daddy can’t find out about this, can he?” Rob said, starting the car.

“Why?”

“Because his friend got hurt, didn’t he?” Rob reminded Felipinho. “And he’ll be sad when he finds out. And we don’t want Daddy to be sad, do we?”

“No,” Felipinho said, sadly. “But… Rob? Is it my fault Daddy’s friend got hurt?”

“What?” Rob asked, looking back to the child to try to understand what Felipinho was talking about. “Why would it be your fault, mate?”

“If I hadn’t come, the bad man wouldn’t have got Daddy’s friend,” Felipinho said. It sounded like it was his fault to him.

“No, it’s not your fault Felipinho,” Rob promised, glancing back at Felipinho every few seconds. “What happened was the bad man’s fault and nobody else’s, ok?”

 

Hanna didn’t know whether she should phone Raffaela or not. She knew her friend had told her to leave it alone, but she just couldn’t. All she could think was what if it was Emily. She wouldn’t be able to sit back and just let somebody parent her little girl, no matter how long it had been.

She didn’t really know where to start looking, though. She wasn’t going to give up, but Hanna did feel a little naïve as she walked Emily to nursery. She didn’t even know the little boy’s name, or what he looked like. How was she supposed to find him, when Raffaela hadn’t been able to?

Hanna did have a bit of a plan, and she hadn’t thought of much else all morning or the evening before, determined to do something to help her friend. She was usually the one who needed support and, if she could just prove herself useful to Raffaela, she was sure she would feel a lot better asking for help herself.

The plan mostly involved getting help from other people. Kimi _knew_ people. Hanna hadn’t really spoken to him since the accident. She’d been round to his house a couple of times and the Finn hadn’t been in. Hanna had assumed he’d been at the hospital and she didn’t want to go there. Emily had spent too long in hospitals recently and Hanna didn’t really know what she’d do when she saw Sebastian. She didn’t really want to risk it.

But now, she was going to have to. She had a _reason_ to. She would go in and find Kimi, ask him to help her find the missing child. She was pretty sure the Finn would be able to do something like that. He wasn’t Hanna’s favourite person in the world but, if she was willing to put that aside for her friend’s sake, he should be able to put away whatever he felt to her (she wasn’t entirely sure how Kimi felt towards her, but she couldn’t imagine it was anything good).

And then there was Rob. Hanna felt like kicking herself at the thought of going to ask him for help _again_ , but she didn’t have anybody else she could trust. Rob was right about a lot of things and she was sure he would help her when he heard Raffaela’s story. That was what Rob did. Help people who needed it. Hanna was hoping she might bump into him on the playground so she could speak to him about it. She had a feeling he might say it was hopeless, but she wasn’t going to let it go and she knew Rob would give in, eventually.

But the parent wasn’t on the playground when Hanna arrived. Neither was Felipinho, Hanna noticed after a quick scan of the crowds of children. Hanna bit her lip, pushing Emily and the push chair back over to the nursery entrance. She was going to have to go to the Halfway Houses, but she didn’t want to take the risk if Felipinho was ill. Not with the baby. Going to see Rob was going to have to wait.

With a small sigh, Hanna crouched down in front of Emily’s pushchair, dodging a kick from her daughter aimed at her, and unbuckled her straps, letting Emily jump out of the pushchair.

“You be a good girl at nursery today, ok?” Hanna said, taking hold of Emily’s hand so she didn’t run off.

Emily wasn’t paying attention, grinning at the teacher who had just come out to welcome them all inside. Hanna rolled her eyes and pressed a kiss to Emily’s forehead.

“See you later,” she said, standing and letting go of her daughter’s hand.

“Seja la-ur,” Emily called back, running into the classroom.

 

If it weren’t for Jenson getting Nico out of bed when the Brit got up to go to work, Nico was pretty sure he wouldn’t have gotten out of bed at all. Every day seemed to be like going around and around in circles and Nico wanted to break out of it. Or just stop it in its tracks and stay in bed all day. He couldn’t go through the same routine of deciding he was going to get something sorted out and then failing miserably. Not again.

He didn’t want to try, but Nico knew he couldn’t give up, either. There were people _relying_ on him, and he couldn’t let them down, especially whilst Räikkönen was preoccupied with Sebastian. It was his job to sort things out and he was going to have to actually do it for once in his life.

Nico was shaken from his thoughts by a knock at the door. He glanced up at the clock before standing, deciding it couldn’t be Jenson having forgotten his keys, and answered the door.

“Get in the car,” Räikkönen said.

Nico froze, his mind hitting a brick wall when he tried to think of something to say. Räikkönen was still playing the whole “bored” image and rolled his eyes, taking Nico by the wrist and pulling him out of the house. Nico shook himself away from the Finn, but had the sense not to try to run, slamming the door shut and following Kimi to the car that was parked on the road. He shouldn’t be doing this. It was dangerous and insane, he knew, but he still got into the passenger seat of the car, watching the Finn closely.

“Where are we going?” Nico asked.

“Did you look at the CCTV from Alonso’s the night he died?” Kimi asked, not answering the question. He didn’t even look at Nico as he started the car.

“Huh?”

“Did you look at the CCTV?” Kimi asked again, slower this time. “From Alonso’s bar.”

“No,” Nico said, slowly. He closed his eyes, mentally scolding himself. How could he have been so stupid as to miss something like that? The idea had never occurred to him at all. He’d been so sure that it had been Kimi behind the attack that, until he’d gone to see the Finn at the hospital, looking for someone else hadn’t even occurred to him. And by the time he had realised that there might be more to the attack than he had thought, common sense had gone out the window.

Kimi didn’t reply, letting Nico’s stupidity sink in. When Nico eventually opened his eyes, he realised where they were going and calmed down a little. He was pretty sure Kimi wasn’t about to drive him into an ambush or attack him, not that Nico would blame him.

“Come with me,” Kimi said when they pulled up in the hospital car park.

He didn’t want to have to deal with Rosberg when he should have been focusing on Sebastian, but he needed to get everything sorted out before Sebastian was all better, and then they could get away from all this whilst Nico had control. Which meant going through what he had found out about Alonso’s death and warning the German about the mess he might have caused with Jos Verstappen.

Nico did as he was told. He didn’t say a word as he followed Kimi through the hospital, knowing where they were going.

Sebastian was still asleep when they arrived to his private room and Kimi wasn’t sure if he was happy about that or not. He didn’t want to waste any of the time Sebastian was awake dealing with Nico or any of Elevency’s many problems, but he knew he had to sort that out as soon as possible. But he just wanted to see Sebastian’s eyes again. More than anything else, he wanted the German awake.

“There was a witness,” Kimi said, taking his usual seat at Sebastian’s bedside and waving to the chair beside him for Nico to sit down. Nico did so in silence, his eyes on his shoes so he didn’t have to look at Sebastian.

“A witness?” Nico asked. “To the attack?”

Kimi nodded. “I’ve spoken to him. He identified the killer. It was Lewis.”

“ _Lewis_?” Nico said. “How can it have been Lewis?”

“This is what the witness says,” Kimi said.

“What witness?” Nico said. He didn’t believe that. Lewis wasn’t a killer. He was a lot of things. A lot of things Nico didn’t like. But he was not a killer. Well, he wouldn’t kill anyone on _purpose_ anyway. That just wasn’t him.

“I can’t say,” Kimi said. He’d decided it was better if Nico didn’t know who the witness was. Though he might have disagreed with a lot of the decisions Rob made, the boy had been through enough and he didn’t need to be harassed by Nico.

“Of course you can,” Nico said. “Who is it?”

“I cannot say,” Kimi said again.

“Then how do I know I can trust this source?” Nico snapped. “How do I know this isn’t Niki Lauda playing games again?”

“I have not heard from Niki since Sebastian… I have not heard from Niki in a long time,” Kimi said, mentally scolding himself for stalling a little. He looked down at Sebastian, still sleeping peacefully. “You can trust the source. Do not worry about that. Worry about finding Lewis.”

“It cannot have been Lewis,” Nico said. “Lewis is not a murderer.”

“He has murdered somebody,” Kimi said. “This makes him a murderer. Think this is how words work.”

“He is not a murderer,” Nico said. He’d loved Lewis, once upon a time, and he was sure he knew the Brit fairly well. Not well enough to realise he was part of some plan to start a war in Elevency, no, but he knew Lewis was not a murderer.

“Well, we will see about that when you find him and ask him,” Kimi said. He was taking charge. Nico had been dealing with this for months whilst Kimi was looking after Sebastian and he hadn’t even thought to check Alonso’s CCTV, so Kimi was taking over. He could give Nico tasks, keep an eye on his progress, providing the German actually made any.

“And what are you planning on doing?” Nico asked.

“I am sorting out the mess you have created with Verstappen,” Kimi said. “He did not take kindly to your conversation with his son. Thank you for giving me more shit to deal with. I did not feel like I had enough.”

Nico stared at the Finn for a couple of moments, trying to figure out how Kimi knew what he had done. Kimi wasn’t looking at him, watching Sebastian’s chest gently rise and fall.

Max. Max must have gone to his father. Nico should have known not to trust the teenager to keep his mouth shut.

Nico stood, still not having any idea what he was going to do but determined to teach Max a lesson.

“Verstappen said you should remember what it is like to be Max’s age,” Kimi said as Nico crossed the room. “I think I agree with him.”


	18. In which Hanna goes to Kimi and Rob is over protective...

Hanna couldn’t stop herself feeling a little nervous as she came into the hospital. The last time she’d been in this part of the building hadn't been a pleasant experience and she didn’t like being back. Luckily for her, the maternity ward was as far away from this side of the hospital as possible, but that wasn’t where she was going to find Kimi, or Raffaela’s baby.

It was only when Hanna looked up at the signs that pointed out the different wards that she realised she had no idea where she was going. Convinced this was the worst idea she had ever had, Hanna approached the desk, waiting for the nurse behind it to finish what she was doing and smile up at her.

“Do you know where I might find Sebastian Vettel?” Hanna asked, nervously. She had every right to go and visit her… her _ex_ -boyfriend. She was carrying his child, after all. “He’s a patient here.”

“Are you a relative?” the nurse asked.

“I’m carrying his baby,” Hanna said, trying not to get angry. She just wanted to come and speak to Kimi. Why was that so difficult?

“Alright,” the nurse said, noticing the tears beginning to well in Hanna’s eyes. “Let me just go and get someone to show you the way…”

The nurse hurried off and Hanna took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to clam down. She was doing this for Raffaela. She was doing this to help her friend. Leaning against the desk, Hanna opened her eyes again and looked down at little bump.

“It’s going to be ok,” she said, quietly. “Daddy will be all better by the time you come along, yeah. Daddy will look after you. Don’t worry.”

The nurse hurried back with another member of staff, who smiled and told Hanna to follow him. Hanna nodded, taking another deep breath to try and calm herself down before following him through the sterile corridors.

“We have to be very careful, you see,” the second nurse explained. “Mr Räikkönen is very cautious, after previous events at the hospital. He is very caring. And, well, we have not seen you before.”

The nurse spoke with a strange accent Hanna had trouble understanding, she was so tired, but she nodded along with what he said anyway. The nurse smiled, and Hanna was a little grateful when he didn’t speak again, leading her in silence to the private room Sebastian was occupying.

Sebastian hadn’t woken again since the time with Dan, and Kimi was beginning to worry it had just been a one off, that Sebastian wasn’t really any better than he had been when they discovered he could breathe unaided.

Kimi barely looked up at the knock at the door, but was surprised to see who was stood behind the nurse. He nodded for them to come in, and the nurse left Hanna alone with Kimi. Hanna just stood in the doorway for a while, her hands coming to rest on her stomach again. She hadn’t looked at Kimi, unable to take her eyes away from the man she loved, but Kimi was watching her.

“I didn’t think you were going to come,” he said. He didn’t have anything against Hanna. None of this was her fault and she was as much a victim in all of this as Sebastian was. He didn’t mean for it to come out as harsh as it did.

“I didn’t want to… intrude,” Hanna said, quietly, her eyes flicking over to Kimi. The Finn offered her the chair on the other side of Sebastian’s bed and she sat down, shaking a little.

“I do not mind,” Kimi said. “Sebastian has people who care about him. This is a good thing. Think he needs to know this.”

“How is he?” Hanna asked. Maybe the nurse had gone over how Sebastian was when he was speaking to her, but she hadn’t been able to understand him. He would probably have sugar coated everything anyway. At least Kimi would tell it how it was.

“Getting better,” Kimi said, eventually, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to get Hanna’s hopes up like the doctors had his, in case it really was just a fluke. “They say he is going to be ok some day.”

“Some day?” Hanna asked.

Kimi nodded.

Hanna gulped and looked down at Sebastian again. He looked _fine_. He looked like he just needed to wake up and he would be ok.

“Are you alright?” Kimi asked.

Hanna nodded quickly, taking her eyes off of Sebastian. “I came…” She needed to get to the point, and quickly before she had to go and collect Emily from nursery. “I came to ask a favour. For a friend.”

“A favour?” Kimi asked.

Hanna nodded. “My friend…” she said, slowly. She was sure Kimi would help when he found out what had happened. She just didn’t really know how to explain it without being blunt. “Her child was stolen from her. Years ago, when it was only a baby. And she doesn’t think she can get him back anymore. But I can’t let her give up. She’s really helped me with Emily and I just want to return the favour.”

Kimi frowned at Hanna. That was a very familiar story…

“How long has the child been missing?” Kimi asked, suspiciously. There was no way it could be the same child… Well, there was, but Kimi refused to believe it. There were already too many coincidences floating about recently.

“Five years,” Hanna said. “I know it’s a long time but I know he can be found. I just need some help, Kimi. I don’t know where to start. You must know people.”

“I would have to speak to the mother…” Kimi said.

Hanna shook her head. “She won’t… she’s given up, Kimi. I’ve tried everything to convince her to carry on but she’s no hope and she won’t help.”

“Maybe she does not want to find the child,” Kimi suggested.

“She _does_ ,” Hanna said. “Please, Kimi. If it were me, she would be doing everything she could to help, I know it.”

So she barely knew Raffaela, she knew that. But in the short time she’d known the Brazilian she’d already been more of a help to Hanna than almost anybody she knew.

“I will still need to speak to her,” Kimi said. He was _not_ going to jump to conclusions. “I need to find out as much as I can if I am going to help her, Hanna.”

“Alright,” Hanna said. She didn’t know if Raffaela was going to go along with this or be angry at her for trying to help, but she needed to try. “I’ll figure something out.”

 

“What takes you so long?” Felipe asked as he got in the car. “The woman refuses that there is a package. You have to go back tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Rob said.

“Am sorry,” Felipe said, kissing Rob on the cheek before buckling his seat belt.

“No, it ain’t your fault,” Rob said, pulling away from the post office. “I’ll explain to the guests. It’ll be fine.”

Felipe smiled weakly, still disappointed in himself at not being able to pick up the package. Rob asked him to do hardly anything, and he couldn’t even manage to do that. There was no way Rob was going to be convinced that he didn’t need the Brit every step of the day when he couldn’t even pick up a package right.

“Did Felipinho go off ok?” Felipe asked.

“Yeah, he was fine,” Rob said. “Managed to put his lunch box on the trolley and everything. Maybe it _is_ you who forgets?”

Rob grinned, glancing over at Felipe every couple of seconds as he drove. Felipe hummed in agreement, but there was no smile on his face and he didn’t really reply.

“Is there something wrong?” Rob asked.

“No,” Felipe said, quickly. “Am fine.”

“Alright,” Rob said, slowly, still a little concerned about the small frown on Felipe’s face. “If there’s something wrong, you can tell me, you know?” he said, still watching Felipe for a reaction. “I won’t be angry.”

“Am fine,” Felipe insisted, but he wasn’t looking at Rob. “Am just…”

“Just what?” Rob pressed. “Felipe, I can’t fix things until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing to fix,” Felipe said. “Am fine. Am just _bored_. That is all.”

“You’re bored?” Rob asked.

Felipe nodded. “Am sick of being cooped up in the house all day. Want to go out and _do_ something. Want to go and see friends and spend time doing things I like without you shadowing me all the time.”

Felipe screwed his eyes shut and groaned, pushing himself back in the car seat. Panicking a little, Rob pulled over at the side of the road, unclipping his seat belt so he could turn to Felipe properly.

“I’m just trying to look after you, sunshine,” Rob said, quietly, taking hold of Felipe’s hand.

“Have already explained all this,” Felipe said without opening his eyes. “But I’ve already explained that I am _fine_ I do not _need_ looking after. Cannot get any better than I already am being locked in the house all the time.”

“I’m not locking you anywhere,” Rob said, laughing a little.

“Is what it feels like,” Felipe said. “Am hardly ever allowed to go out without you. Am hardly ever allowed to go out at all, you think I am going to do something stupid and get hit by a car again.”

“I don’t think that,” Rob said, gently.

“Then why do you never let me out?” Felipe snapped.

“I do!” Rob cried. “Felipe, you can do whatever you want. You know that.”

“No I cannot,” Felipe said. “If I do I have to put up with your huffing and puffing, which is just as bad. Do not want to upset you Rob, but I do not see _why_ this upsets you. I am better.”

“I know best, Felipe,” Rob said.

“Of course you do,” Felipe muttered, folding his arms and glaring out of the windscreen. “Do not want to have an argument about this with you, Rob.”

“You’re the one who started it,” Rob snapped.

Felipe bit his lip, saying nothing. Rob sighed when he didn’t reply, starting the car again.

“I’m just…” Rob began, before he shook his head. It was no use. Felipe wouldn’t understand that Rob was doing what was best for all of them.


	19. In which Nico speaks to Max, Hanna speaks to Raffaela, and Rob... doesn't really speak to Felipe...

“I’ve got to go and see a supplier,” Jenson said as he pulled on his coat to head outside. “You two can hold the fort for an hour or two, yeah?”

He didn’t wait for either Carlos or Max to reply before darting out of the almost empty coffee shop. Carlos waited until he was sure his boss was out of sight before rolling his eyes, wiping sugar off of the counter where Max had spilt it. The teenager was stood at the till, drumming a bored rhythm onto the countertop. The weapon in his waistband had, for now, been forgotten.

Until the café door swung open again and a familiar blonde German came in.

“Nico,” Carlos said, smiling in greeting. “Boss isn’t here, I’m afraid.”

“No?” Nico said, innocently. He was looking at Carlos, but Max was sure the German glanced over in his direction. Max’s fingers had stopped drumming and he was suddenly very aware of the pain in his stomach. “Shame.”

Nico ordered his usual drink, which Max rung up on the counter with shaking hands whilst Carlos made the drink. Max expected Nico to take the order to go, but the German decided to take a seat at the bar beside the counter. Max could feel Nico’s eyes on him whilst he stared at the clock above the door, wishing the time away so he could get out of here.

“Hey, Max,” Nico called over after a while.

Max dragged his eyes away from the door to turn to the customer, smiling weakly. “Yeah?”

“Let’s have a chat, hey, if you’re bored?” Nico smiled, and Max could almost pretend it was genuine. He glanced over at Carlos, but the Spaniard was busy wiping down the coffee machine. It didn’t look like he was going to have a choice. The teenager came over, leaning against the bar like Jenson did and forcing himself to smile. “There’s no need to look so worried.”

“Sorry,” Max mumbled, trying to not look so worried, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

Nico just laughed, pushing his coffee to the side so he could lean on the counter.

“You know, I was like you when I was your age, Max,” he said, slowly.

“You were… huh?”

Nico smiled and nodded, leaning his chin on his hand. “My dad was big and scary, and he had big and scary friends, and big and scary enemies. And I wanted nothing to do with any of them.”

Max smiled weakly. It sounded pretty familiar. Maybe Nico wasn’t as bad as he had thought he was going to be. If the German understood what it was like to be in Max’s position, maybe he would be kinder…

“I learned all the tricks, Max,” Nico said. “All the time my dad screwed up and he was made to pay through me. I know their tricks, Max.”

Max gulped, his smiled gone

 

Hanna grinned as she answered the door. Emily was sat on the floor in the living room, having had a very happy day at nursery and was no munching on a slightly mashed banana. Raffaela laughed at the excitement on her friend’s face. She hadn’t been planning on coming round today, but Hanna had insisted, said she had exciting news to tell her.

“Go on then,” Raffaela said as Hanna took her coat from her to hang it up. “What news?”

She’d seemed very excited on the phone, insisting that whatever it was couldn’t wait, but now Hanna kept her mouth shut, grinning and leading her friend through to the living room.

Raffaela immediately scooped Emily into her arms, causing the toddler to drop her banana and squeal with excitement as Raffaela sat down. Emily clapped her hands before going to stick her fingers in Raffaela’s hair. Hanna caught them quickly, taking a baby wipe from the changing bag and cleaning the little digits.

“You’re so good with her,” Hanna said, sitting down beside them.

“You think?” Raffaela said, bouncing Hanna a little and making the little girl giggle.

“Definitely,” Hanna said, beaming.

“So what’s this news?” Raffaela asked, bringing them back to the reason for her visit.

“Alright,” Hanna said, turning to Raffaela properly. “I was speaking to a friend. Actually, to Emily’s father’s friend. He… he knows people, you know? And, he thinks he might be able to find your son for you.”

Raffaela froze, staring at Hanna. “No.”

“What?”

“Have told you Hanna,” Raffaela said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “It is no use. My baby is gone. I have to move on.”

“But you’re letting your little boy grow up without his mother,” Hanna cried. “I know you told me to leave it, Raffaela, but I couldn’t. You’ve been so good to me and you hardly even know me and I just wanted to repay that. There’s hope. He might be able to find your son. Don’t you want that?”

“Of course I want that,” Raffaela said, quietly, bouncing Emily on her lap when the toddler started to get a little unsettled. “I want this more than anything in the world. But I cannot get my hopes up again.”

“I understand,” Hanna said, gently, moving a little closer so she could brush a strand of Raffaela’s hair behind her ear. “But you’re not going to be let down this time. We’ll get your little boy back, I promise.”

Raffaela shook her head, still not convinced.

“He wants to meet you,” Hanna said.

“What?”

“He says he needs to,” Hanna said. “To find out information so that he can find your son. I tried to find another way, but I don’t think there is one.

Raffaela shook her head again. “I can’t do this Hanna.”

“You can,” Hanna said. “Think about the smile on his face when he’s back with you. He’ll be happy, Raffaela. I know it. Please speak to my friend.”

Raffaela bit her lip, clearly thinking about it. Hanna took Emily back from her when the child got restless, standing to bounce her on her hip for a while.

After a few moments’ silence, Raffaela sighed. “I’ll do it.”

 

“If you want to go out, Felipe, then go out!”

Valtteri closed the front door quietly and waited in the hall, listening to the argument.

“I do not _want_ to go out,” Felipe snapped back. “I just want you to be ok if I did want to go out.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

The Finn leaned against the wall, his eyes closed. He’d tried to warn Rob this would happen…

“I want you to be happy,” Felipe said, slowly. “But you will not be happy if I decide now I want to go for a walk, will you?”

“Of course not,” Rob said.

The phone in the hallway started ringing, but neither Felipe nor Rob seemed to react to it, so Valtteri answered it. The agency, looking to see if they had any room. Valtteri tried to ignore the argument as he took down the details they needed.

“Felipe I just want to protect you.”

“Am an adult, Rob,” Felipe snapped back. “Do not need protecting from the big scary world outside. Can go out without being hit by a car. Am not going to be attacked the next time I go out the door. Have lived here five years and nothing happens. Do. Not. Need. Protecting.”

“Fine,” Rob yelled. “Go out. See if I care.”

“I think that’s everything,” the woman on the other end of the phone said.

Valtteri looked down at the sheet of notes and nodded. “Is everything. Will pass it onto Rob when I get a chance.”

Felipe stormed into the front hall, not even glancing down at Valtteri before grabbing his coat and marching out of the house, slamming the door behind him. Rob didn’t follow him.

Valtteri folded the piece of paper in half after he’d put the phone down, trying to decide if now was a good time to disturb Rob. The Brit must have realised he was there when the phone started ringing, and Valtteri knew if he didn’t do this now he would forget.

“Rob?”

Rob was sat in the kitchen, a mug in front of him.

“I don’t need a lecture, Valtteri,” he muttered.

“Was not going to give one,” Valtteri said, handing Rob the piece of paper and sitting opposite him. “New guests.”

Rob looked between Valtteri and the paper then sighed, covering his face with his hands.

“Can sort it out for you, if you want,” Valtteri said.

“No, it’s fine,” Rob said, pocketing the piece of paper. “I’ll do it.”

“You and Felipe…” Valtteri said, slowly.

“I said I don’t need a lecture,” Rob snapped, standing.

“Where are you going?”

“To go and sort out the house,” Rob said. “If Felipe comes back tell him we need to talk.”


	20. In which Jenson tries to get through to Nico and Rob has a plan...

Carlos pulled his boss into the backroom as soon as Jenson returned to the coffee shop, hoping Max hadn’t seen him. Nico was long gone, but Max hadn’t stopped shaking since the German arrived and Carlos was a little worried. He knew who Nico Rosberg was, of course, but he’d never seen the German as the scary gangster he was supposed to be. He’d never seen any reason to react the way Max was reacting.

“What’s wrong?” Jenson asked as Carlos gently closed the breakroom door.

“I think there is something wrong with Max,” Carlos said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jenson asked.

“I don’t know,” Carlos said. “But he’s been really shaky. Like, even more than usual. He was speaking to Nico earlier and he hasn’t been right since.”

“Speaking to Nico?” Jenson said. “Nico came in?”

“Not long after you had left,” Carlos said. “I do not know what he said to Max but it has put Max in a state.”

“I need to go,” Jenson said, jumping up. He’d thought he’d sorted all this out, but if Nico was going to come into his shop and start threatening his workers, he was going to have to do something about it.

“What?” Carlos said, following Jenson out of the breakroom. “How long for? Max leaves in half an hour. You’re leaving me on my own.”

“I shouldn’t be long,” Jenson said, rushing back out of the door.

 

Nico had no idea if he’d made things better or worse by going to speak to Max, but he’d done something, and it made him feel a little better. There was a chance the teenager would go running to his father again, but Nico liked to think he’d know better than that. The next time he had to go to see the teenager, it wouldn’t just be for a quiet word.

Now he’d gotten that sorted out, Nico’s mind was clear to deal with the thing he’d been trying to deal with for months.

He could not believe that it was Lewis who had killed Fernando. He just was not a killer. Kimi didn’t know Lewis like Nico did. He’d been friends with the Brit since they were children and he was sure Lewis’ involvement in the last plot was only out of pressure after the hit and run. He’d been a completely different person after the hit and run.

The so called witness Kimi was keeping a secret had to know who the real killer was, which meant Nico had to find them. He still wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t Kimi who had killed Fernando, and this would be the perfect cover up for the Finn. The only problem was that Nico had absolutely no idea who the witness was.

“Nico!”

The front door slammed shut, making Nico jump. He glanced over at the clock on the wall as he went to greet Jenson, but it definitely wasn’t time for the Brit to be back yet. He hadn’t been sat staring at the wall for that long.

“Are you crazy?” Jenson asked.

Nico stepped back a little. That hadn’t been the greeting he had been expecting.

“No?”

“You threatened Max,” Jenson said, jabbing a finger at the door he had just come in through. “Again?”

Nico laughed. “He told you this?”

“No,” Jenson said. “But I’ve seen him, Nico. He’s scared to death. He’s just a kid and he’s nothing to do with this.”

“Well, maybe this time he won’t go running home to daddy, will he?” Nico spat. Jenson was taking the side of some kid he barely knew over _his_.

“Nico, he is not his father,” Jenson said, slowly, as if his boyfriend might be able to understand him better this way. “The same as you’re not yours. He’s not involved in any crazy scheme. He studies and he cleans tables in a café. Get a grip.”

He wasn’t having this. It wasn’t all about Max. Yeah, Jenson cared about the kid. Max worked for him and Jenson felt like he had a duty of care over all the youngsters that worked for him. But this was about Nico too. If Jos Verstappen really was as bad as Nico and Kimi seemed to think he was, then they did not need to be on his bad side, and that was the only place he could see them being if Nico kept threatening Max.

“Jenson, you have no idea what is going on,” Nico snapped. At least Lewis had just left him alone when it came to work. Sort of…

“For crying out loud, Nico, neither do you,” Jenson said. “You cannot treat people like that, Nico. You are just going to get yourself in trouble.”

“I know what I’m-.”

Nico was stopped before he could finish by the sound of the landline ringing. Jenson rolled his eyes when Nico went to answer it. He wasn’t getting out of this that easily. Jenson was not going to let this happen again.

“Hello?”

“Nico?”

“Kevin?”

“We found Lewis.”

 

Rob sat alone in a silent house, trying to get his head straight. The house was all in order, waiting for the next family to move in. He’d known it would be spotless. He hadn’t come here for that.

Rob knew he wasn’t really like her. He _knew_ he wasn’t like her. The only thing he could think of that would be worse than hurting Felipe would be hurting Felipinho. He was _not_ like _her_ , and he never would be.

But it didn’t matter how many times he told himself that. All that mattered was what Felipe thought. And maybe…

He wasn’t really keeping him captive here. Felipe was over exaggerating. He could go out whenever he wanted to. He was out _now_ , for goodness sake. All Felipe wasn’t happy about was the fact that Rob wasn’t happy. And how was he supposed to be happy, knowing _anything_ could happen to Felipe whilst he was out. They still hadn’t found Lewis Hamilton – and now it turned out he (or someone that looked a lot like him) had killed Fernando Alonso as well. There were people like that out on the streets in Elevency and Felipe could look after himself, sure, but against people like that? Rob just wanted to keep him safe, and he couldn’t work out why Felipe wouldn’t like that.

But… but if Felipe wasn’t comfortable then they needed to talk about it. Rob could sit here convincing himself he wasn’t like Felipinho’s mother all he liked, it wasn’t going to make Felipe feel the slightest bit better.

The way Rob saw it, he had two options: try again to explain to Felipe that he was doing the right thing and risk losing him if he didn’t listen, or ignore his fears and put a smile on his face when he let Felipe do what he wanted. It wouldn’t be for that long. It couldn’t be that much longer until the agency sorted out things for the houses. And then they would be gone. They’d go to the nice little house by the sea where there weren’t any murderers for Rob to worry about.

He just had to pretend he was ok with this for a little while, and then everything would be ok.


	21. In which Raffaela has a plan...

“What do you mean he just _found_ Lewis,” Jenson said. He trusted Kevin. After all, it had been Jenson who had introduced Kevin and Nico to one another. He knew Kevin would never do anything to cause any trouble, and Nico knew that too. But they’d been looking for Nico’s ex-boyfriend for months, and gotten absolutely nowhere (as far as he knew). Jenson had been sure Lewis would be long gone by now, and had pretty much given up all hope of ever finding him.

“That’s what he said,” Nico said. He didn’t really believe it either. Why would he come out of hiding _now_? Of course, he couldn’t know that they knew he’d killed Alonso (or that Kimi was trying to pin Alonso’s murder on him), but it still seemed like bad timing for Nico. He was sure something was up.

“What do you think happened?” Jenson asked. He knew whatever had been said between Nico and Max was going to have to wait. This was much more important.

“I don’t know,” Nico said, shaking his head. He didn’t want to come up with any wild theories. He just wanted to find Lewis and find out what really happened.

“Do you think he’s on your side or not?” Jenson asked.

“I don’t _know_ , Jenson,” Nico snapped. He was starting to wish he’d insisted Jenson go back to the coffee shop.

Jenson just nodded and decided it was probably best to keep quiet for now. As much as he knew Nico was out of his depths dealing with everything at the moment, he knew his boyfriend knew more about all of this than he did. His pestering wasn’t going to help the situation at all.

 

Kimi had more important things to deal with than this. He hadn’t liked the way Nico had left and he had a funny feeling he was going to have to deal with whatever mess the German made. But the sooner he dealt with Hanna’s problem – of Hanna’s “friend’s” problem – the sooner he could focus completely on the more important things he was going to have to deal with.

“Do we have to do this today?” Raffaela asked, pushing Emily along in her pushchair whilst Hanna walked alongside.

Kimi had told them to meet him at his house. He didn’t want to do this in Sebastian’s room. Of course he wanted to be there when Sebastian woke up, but if it was a choice between all three of them being there or none of them there, Kimi would prefer it to be none of them.

“The sooner we start, the sooner we find your son,” Hanna said.

“We won’t find him, Hanna,” Raffaela said, sadly. She was not letting herself get her hopes up, Hanna noticed, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Hanna hopped up the steps to Kimi’s front door, knocking quickly whilst Raffaela waited at the bottom with Emily.

Kimi was only slightly surprised to find Raffaela stood at the bottom of the steps when he opened the door. Half of him wanted to slam the door shut there and then. He’d heard what she’d done and Massa had done the only reasonable thing. Kimi was not listening to her sob story anymore.

“This is Raffaela,” Hanna said, stepping aside and waving a hand back to her friend. “My friend.”

Against his better judgment, Kimi let the two women into the house, even helping Raffaela bring the pushchair up the steps and into the house. He tried to meet her eye, but Raffaela wouldn’t look at him, already beginning to blush.

Kimi waved a hand at the sofa, letting Hanna and Raffaela sit down. Raffaela still wouldn’t look at Kimi, who stood across the room from them with his arms folded. He would let Raffaela try to tell him her sob story again and then Kimi would tell Hanna what really happened.

“What do you need to know?” Hanna asked Kimi.

“Could we…” Raffaela looked up, to her friend, glancing nervously at Kimi. “Could we do this… without you Hanna?”

“What?” Hanna said, confused.

“I just… it would be easier,” Raffaela said. Kimi smirked as he watched her try to guilt Hanna. And it looked like it was working.

“Alright,” Hanna said, with a small smile. “I’ll take Emily and wait outside for you, yeah? I’m just outside if you need me.”

She took Emily out of the pushchair, not wanting to deal with the wheels on the steps again, and left the house once more. Kimi’s eyes stayed on Raffaela, waiting to hear what she would come up with this time.

Raffaela didn’t say anything for a while, looking down at her hands on her lap.

“Well?” Kimi asked.

“I never asked her to do this,” Raffaela said.

“You could have refused,” Kimi said.

“I need to get my son back,” Raffaela said, looking up at Kimi with tears in her eyes. The Finn wasn’t going to fall for that again though.

“He is better off where he is,” Kimi said. He hadn’t spoken to Raffaela since he stopped helping her attempts to get Felipinho back. He’d never explained that he knew the truth and, when he’d heard Raffaela had dropped the charges against Felipe, he’d assumed that was the end of it.

Looking back now, that was a pretty stupid assumption…

“I’m his mother,” Raffaela said again.

“That does not make you a good person,” Kimi said.

Raffaela stared at him in confusion for a couple of moments, as if she didn’t know what Kimi was talking about, then nodded.

“So they told you that story as well.”

“I have heard a number of versions of events,” Kimi said. “And I no longer wish to help you. You can leave now, if you don’t want me to tell Hanna what her friend is really like.”

“No,” Raffaela said, determinedly. “You’re helping me. You’re going to have to.”

Kimi smirked. “I do not believe I am going to have to do anything.”

“Do you realise how close I am to Hanna?” Raffaela asked. “I can get her to do anything I want her to.”

She leaned forward, smiling sweetly.

Kimi just shrugged. “And why should I care about this?”

“You care about Sebastian, don’t you?” Raffaela said. “How do you think he’d feel if he woke up and found out Hanna had taken Emily and disappeared? I’m sure I can convince Hanna that would be good for her.”

It was clear on Kimi’s face that he understood the threat.

“Hanna would not trust you over me,” he said, eventually, but Raffaela could tell he wasn’t as confident in that threat as he wanted to be.

“You’re going to risk that?” she asked. “You know, Hanna’s been questioning whether she should even keep this baby. Maybe I’ll have a word with her about that too?”

She said it all with a smile and Kimi should have known not to trust her the moment she’d come to him in the first place, but it was too late for that now. He wasn’t even sure if it was still possible for Hanna to change her mind about an abortion, but Kimi knew it wasn’t worth the risk. It would kill Sebastian if- _when_ he woke up.

“What do you want me to do?”


	22. In which Rob tries to sort things out, Nico starts to get somewhere, and Kimi has a chat...

Nico had arranged to meet Kevin in a sandwich shop on a small street on the out skirts of the town centre. All the buildings on the street were retail, most of them fast food restaurants or closed down stores. Kevin was already there when Nico arrived, sitting in the window and waiting for his boss.

Jenson followed Nico into the sandwich shop and went over to the counter whilst Kevin spoke to Nico. He watched the pair of them, not able to hear the conversation, as he ordered the food. He was trying to read Nico’s face, like he had done when Nico and Kevin would have their meetings in his coffee shop during the so called war between Nico and Kimi. He’d never really been able to read Nico then, either. When he was working, he was an entirely different person.

The two of them whispered together, Kevin occasionally glancing around at the other people in the shop, but Nico didn’t seem too concerned about them, his eyes staying on Kevin the entire time.

Jenson only came over when Nico nodded and sat back, his entire being changing back to his usual self.

“Here you are,” Jenson said, placing the sandwich in front of Nico, still not sure what to make of the conversation. “Everything all right?”

“Never better,” Nico said, smiling as he took the sandwich.

 

“I think I understand.”

Rob had caught Felipe as soon as he came back into the house. He knew what he had to do now and he couldn’t put it off for any longer. If he didn’t sort this out, he was going to lose Felipe, and that was the last thing he wanted.

“You understand what?” Felipe asked, hanging up his coat. He was a little thrown, if he were honest, expecting Rob to at least ask where he’d been.

“You,” Rob said, quietly. “I understand why I’ve upset you. I’ve been being an idiot and forgetting.”

“Forgetting what?” Felipe asked, letting Rob lead him into the living room. It wasn’t late. Felipe hadn’t wanted to stay out too late so, if Rob was going to have a go at him, he’d have cooled off by the time they needed to pick up Felipinho, but apparently that hadn’t been necessary.

“Forgetting you,” Rob said, quietly, sitting down and patting the spot next to him.

A little confused Felipe sat next to him.

“Forgetting what you were like before the accident,” Rob said. “How strong you were. I forgot how you were when Felipinho was a baby, before we were together. You brought him here alone and you provided him with everything he needed when you had nothing. I forgot how you looked after yourself through all of that. I got distracted by what had happened. I got scared. But now I’ve remembered I don’t need to be scared. I’m sorry.”

He smiled, hoping this was working, and looked down at his lap. He didn’t know what else to do anymore and if this didn’t work… if this didn’t work then maybe they weren’t going to work.

“Sorry?” Felipe asked, eventually. It sounded like his voice was stuck in his throat.

Rob nodded, glancing up at Felipe.

A grin crept onto the Brazilian’s face. “Thank you.”

 

Jenson was waiting in the car. Nico had left him a couple of streets away from where Kevin had directed him to, walking the rest of the way. It seemed stupid to send Jenson home, and he knew there was no way Jenson was going to _go_ home, even if he was playing along nicely at the moment. Nico would need the car, and someone to convince him he wasn’t going insane like had happened last time. But he didn’t want Jenson _there_ either. There was no explanation for that. It just didn’t sit well with him.

The address Kevin had given Nico was for an animal shelter, which didn’t make much sense to Nico at all. The story, that a guy Kevin had working for him and his wife had gone into the shelter to look for a pet and spotted Lewis, seemed a little unbelievable to Nico, but Kevin had just shrugged. That was what had happened, apparently.

What they were sure of, though, was that Lewis wasn’t expecting Nico, which was confirmed by the look on his face when Nico walked into the shelter.

Nico smiled as he watched Lewis fumble for words, trying to get the people he was dealing with out of the shop as soon as possible. Nico waited patiently but the door, not taking his eyes off of Lewis. The woman at the counter seemed to understand that something was up, making her excuses and hurrying out of the shop.

“Nico,” Lewis said, quietly. “I wasn’t expecting you here.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you did,” Nico said, flicking the sign in the door over to the closed side.

Lewis’ eyes flicked between Nico and the door, but there was no way he could get out there without being caught by the German. Nico smiled and took a step towards Lewis, only for Lewis to dart out of the back door. Nico chased him through the kennels at the back of the shelter, cursing as he tripped over his own feet and let Lewis get a little further ahead. The Brit was just heading over the wall when Nico came into the back yard, not looking back to see how close he was.

“Lewis!” Nico yelled, running to take a jump at the wall but aiming too badly to climb up. “Lewis, I just need to talk to you.”

Nico tried once more to scramble over the wall, then dashed back through the shop, trying to work out which way Lewis could have gone. Something tripped Nico up as he came out of the kennels and suddenly there was something over his mouth.

 

Kimi was sat at Sebastian’s side again. According to the nurse, he hadn’t woken up whilst Kimi was away, and he didn’t know how to feel about that. The conclusion that what had happened with Dan had just been a fluke was getting worse and worse, and it made Kimi feel sick.

The nurse had suggested speaking to him again, but that hadn’t done anything before. He didn’t want to look like a moron, speaking to an empty room. But anything was worth a try right now.

Kimi cleared his throat before he realised he had no idea what he was going to say.

“Hello,” he began, because that seemed like the best place to start. He hoped something would come to mind, but nothing did, and he fell back into silence, sighing and slouching back down in his chair. “Please wake up.”

It was all he could think of to say. All he could think of at all. Please wake up and please let us go back to how we were before. Kimi knew that wasn’t possible, that if- no, _when_ Sebastian woke up, it would be a long time until he was anywhere near what Kimi could consider normal. But that didn’t stop him wanting it.

“I’m sorry,” Kimi said, quietly. “I’m sorry for turning you away and I’m sorry for being an idiot and I’m sorry for doing this but please, Seb, just wake up. Have been punished enough. Ok, maybe not enough, but please. Know you would not be doing this if you had a choice but maybe you do and you don’t realise and look, Seb. You can wake up. You are stronger than this and you can wake up. I’m sorry. I do need you. You are the most important thing in my life and I need you to wake up so you can hear that. You can’t… you can’t go thinking otherwise, ok? You can’t go thinking… thinking…”

Kimi didn’t understand what had gone on inside Sebastian’s head. He was loved. He must have known that. Kimi knew he’d been horrible. He knew this was all his fault and he should never have said the things he did. But Sebastian… Sebastian must have _known_ none of that was true. After everything they had been through, how could one drunken argument…

But this was Sebastian. Sebastian who had gone over the edge over nothing already…

“I need you.”


	23. In which Nico figures out the truth

Nico woke with a disgusting taste in his mouth. He didn’t really know how to describe it to himself. Just… chemical like. He had no idea what it was, but knew it couldn’t be anything good. And it probably had something to do with the fact he couldn’t see. Or move his arms that much.

Nico kept still as he replayed the last of his memories back to himself. The animal shelter and the short chase Lewis had given him. The fall… that was it. That was how he’d ended up here.

Stay calm, Nico reminded himself. He’d been in these kind of situations before. Or similar situations before. It felt like an age ago when he’d been a scared little teenager, waiting for his father to sort things out or make them let him go. There would be nobody coming to his aid this time, he knew, but he was sure there was a way to use past experiences to his advantage. And staying calm couldn’t do any harm.

“Did you really think it was going to be that easy?”

Nico frowned. He knew that voice, but couldn’t connect a name to the sound. It was someone from the old days, though. Someone from before he’d been in charge, his father’s era.

Something he couldn’t see hit Nico in the side of the head, leaving his cheek stinging and his face throbbing. He should have known it was going to be one of those kinds of meetings…

 

Rob was watching Felipe as they waited for Felipinho to come out of school. He was chatting to some of the other parents whilst Rob kept his distance and sat on one of the benches that lined the edges of the playground.

Biting his tongue and ignoring how scared he was turned out to be more difficult than he thought it would be. He’d let Felipe drive them to the school, and was thankful Felipe hadn’t insisted on doing the run alone. He’d kept his distance getting out of the car and walking to the right playground to wait for the children, but it wasn’t easy.

He’d no idea what the women Felipe was talking to was saying, but he could see Felipe laughing and nodding along. Rob _knew_ that was nothing to worry about, but that didn’t stop him worrying.

Rob took out his phone, trying to find something else to focus on and reminding himself that Felipe would be ok. He’d never been worried before, and there was no need to be worried now. He was surprised to find a message from Räikkönen waiting for him when he unlocked the phone.

_Need to speak to the kid. Tomorrow morning._

Rob rolled his eyes. What was there to speak to Felipinho about? He’d told Kimi everything he knew, identified Lewis as the killer. Whether that was right or not, Rob didn’t know but he wasn’t going to say anything else, was he? But if he didn’t take Felipinho, the Finn would just tell Felipe what happened, and he could not find out.

Not bothering to reply – because Räikkönen wouldn’t be expecting him to reply – Rob put his phone away and tried to come up with another excuse to give to Felipe.

It wasn’t right to lie to him and it wasn’t fair either, but Rob knew he was doing the right thing. Felipe didn’t need to know about anything that happened that night: what that woman had done to Felipinho or what Felipinho had seen happen to Fernando. It would only upset Felipe and there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. There was no point in upsetting him. But Rob knew Felipe wouldn’t see it like that, which was why he absolutely could not find out what had happened. Rob hiding it from him would just make him think it was ten times worse than it actually was.

Rob looked over at Felipe again. He was _happy_. That was the important thing. And, once they moved, there would be none of this history to make him unhappy.

Felipinho raced out of the door when the school bell rang, straight past Felipe and into Rob. Rob noticed Felipe’s face fall a little. No matter how used to this he was getting, _that_ was still upsetting Felipe. He sighed and picked Felipinho up, heading over to Felipe.

“You missed Daddy, mate,” Rob said, forcing a laugh.

“Guess what we did at school today, Rob,” Felipinho said, excitedly.

“What did you do?” Felipe asked, jumping into the conversation.

Felipinho frowned at his father, then turned to Rob. Rob didn’t say anything, offering Felipe the child. Felipinho’s frown deepened and he wrapped his arms tighter around Rob’s neck, not wanting to let go.

“Rob, guess what we did at school today,” he said, a little less excited now.

Felipe shook his head and began to lead them back to the car. Rob sighed, barely listening as Felipinho told him about his day, and followed Felipe.

It would be better once they got their fresh start. Everything would be better once they got their fresh start. Felipinho was just going through a phase and it wouldn’t be that long until Rob was the one being left out, he was sure. But that didn’t stop it upsetting Felipe now, and Rob knew he needed to sort that out.

 

Whoever had owned the voice had gone at least a few hours ago when Nico heard the door open again. It was difficult to have any idea what the time was with the blindfold keeping him in the dark anyway, and Nico couldn’t be sure if he’d passed out at some point either. But he knew it had definitely been a while when he heard the sound of footsteps and a small gasp.

“Nico?”

Trembling fingers removed the blind fold from around Nico’s eyes and, as soon as he could, Nico spat at the Brit, missing when Lewis jumped back a little.

“Ok, I deserved that,” he muttered.

“You deserve a lot more than that,” Nico hissed, glaring at him.

“This wasn’t all my fault,” Lewis said.

Nico doesn’t even bother arguing about it. He’d always known Lewis wasn’t the mastermind behind all this. Even if he _was_ a killer, and Nico’s sure he wasn’t, there was no way he would plan all of this on his own. He was a puppet, and Nico liked to think he didn’t even _like_ what he was doing.

“What’s going on, Lewis?” Nico said, gentler than before. Maybe he could find a way to convince Lewis to get back on his side. Maybe he could find a way out of this.

“It has nothing to do with me,” Lewis said again.

“No,” Nico said. He knew that. “This is about Kimi and me, isn’t it? Lewis? Lewis, whatever they have said you need to do, you do not need to do it, ok?”

“It’s all gonna kick off, Nico,” Lewis said, shaking his head. “And I’m going to be on the winning side when it does.”

“It doesn’t have to kick off, you idiot,” Nico snapped, before regaining his composure. He was supposed to be getting Lewis on side, not insulting him. “Lewis, everything was fine until this all started. I don’t want to fight. Kimi doesn’t want to fight.”

“You’re sure about that,” Lewis said, and his signature smirk was back.

“Not whilst Sebastian’s still in hospital,” Nico said. For once, he was confident in his answer. Maybe Kimi killed Alonso, maybe he didn’t, but he was definitely not planning anything whilst his boyfriend was still in intensive care.

That made Lewis falter a little.

“Sebastian’s in hospital?”

“There was a car accident,” Nico explained. Lewis had gone missing that night. Maybe he didn’t know about it. “Sebastian’s been in a coma for a while.”

Lewis tried to calm himself down, but Nico could see that wasn’t working. He frowned, trying to work out what he was getting so worked up about. So Kimi wasn’t going to go along with the game whoever Lewis was working for was playing. That didn’t explain why Lewis was so… worried…

The answer clicked in Nico’s head and his mouth fell open.

“It was you.”

“What? No,” Lewis said, a little too quickly.

“You were driving,” Nico said, nodding to himself a little. Lewis tried to deny it but, the more he did, the more Nico was convinced he was right. “You were the one that hit Sebastian.”


	24. In which Jenson gets help and Nico believes Lewis...

Jenson didn’t know what to do. Kevin had tried to get him to calm down when he’d phoned, but it wasn’t working. Nico was missing. He’d been gone for hours now and Jenson was sure that wasn’t of his own accord. He would have at least come back to the car to tell Jenson to go if he was going to take this long doing whatever he was doing. Jenson knew he shouldn’t have let Nico go in there by himself. No matter how much the German insisted he was fine, Jenson should have insisted he go with him.

This was useless. Jenson knew he should phone someone else, but there wasn’t really anybody to phone. Nobody who would help them, anyway. But he needed to _do_ something. He could not just hang around expecting things to get better when Nico was god knew where.

Later, Jenson would blame his next actions on desperation, because he simply didn’t know what else he could do. He would also realise that phoning the only person Nico would want helping him _less_ than Räikkönen probably wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, not that Jenson would admit that to anyone…

 

“Lewis, tell me what happened that night?” Nico said.

Lewis didn’t say anything. He’d been stood across the room with his eyes closed for about five minutes now, once he’d finished denying that it had been him that had hit Sebastian. Apparently he couldn’t deal with the fact he’d accidentally stopped any kind of war happening.

“Lewis,” Nico said again, trying to be as gentle as possible. “Lewis, if you tell me what happened, I can help?”

“You can help?” Lewis scoffed. “You’re the one who’s been tied up and beaten, and you think you can help me.”

“Once you tell me what happened,” Nico said. The chain of events wasn’t making sense in his head. Lewis couldn’t have been the person who dumped Alonso on his doorstep if he was busy hitting Sebastian with a car. Kimi was lying, or the so called witness he had was lying. “Lewis, I care about you,” Nico tried.

“You never cared about me, Nico,” Lewis said, shaking his head. “I know that now.”

“I did,” Nico said. “I do. Please, Lewis. Tell me what happened.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Lewis said.

“Räikkönen has a witness,” Nico said. He was going to have to try a new tactic. If he could just know for sure that Lewis hadn’t killed Alonso, he would be able to clear his mind a little, figure out a plan to convince Lewis to let him go.

“Of the car accident?” Lewis asked, worried.

Nico shook his head. “He has a witness that says you killed Fernando Alonso.”

The worry left Lewis’ face, only to be replaced by confusion. “That _I_ killed _Alonso_?”

Nico nodded.

“That’s stupid,” Lewis said, and his denial seemed a lot more believable than when he’d tried to deny the car accident. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” Nico said.

“You believe them?” Lewis asked. He shook his head. “Of course you do. You’d believe anyone over me, wouldn’t you?”

“That isn’t true,” Nico said. “I never believed him, Lewis. Alonso told me himself it was Räikkönen. But what was I supposed to do? Completely ignore the witness?”

“You don’t even know who it is,” Lewis pointed out. “Kimi’s come up with some idea to get out of the blame and you fell for it.”

“I believe you,” Nico said. “I believe you, Lewis, but you need to let me go so I can sort this out.”

 

“Jenson!” Carlos called when his boss finally came back into the coffee shop. He was supposed to have left hours ago, but he couldn’t close the shop and there was nobody else there. He’d been expecting Jenson to come back at some point, but he’d thought that would have been a little sooner.

“It’s alright, Carlos, you can go,” Jenson said, leading Jos Verstappen into the coffee shop. Carlos was about to ask what had taken Jenson so long, but the look on his boss’ face stopped him. Nodding quickly, Carlos got his things from the break room and hurried out of the shop.

There were only a few customers lingering in the shop and, for once, Jenson was glad for the fact that business was slowing. The customers seemed to get the same hint as Carlos, drinking their coffee quickly before hurrying away. Neither Jenson nor Verstappen said anything until the last customer had left and Jenson had changed the sign in the door to read “closed”.

“So you came to me?” Verstappen said, turning around in his stool to watch Jenson cross the room. “After everything he has done to my son?”

“He hasn’t actually _done_ anything to Max,” Jenson said. He knew this wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t know what else to do. He needed someone to help Nico and there was nobody else he could think of.

“Just scared him half to death,” Verstappen pointed out. “It is funny you did not think that maybe I had something to do with your boyfriend’s disappearance.”

Jenson stopped, halfway across the room. Verstappen’s face was blank and Jenson couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

“You didn’t, did you?” he asked, slowly. The thought had never actually occurred to him and, now it had, he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid.

“Of course not,” Verstappen said, a small smirk curling the edge of his lips. “I have better things to do than deal with my useless son’s enemies.”

Jenson couldn’t help the sigh of relief he gave as he nodded, sitting opposite Verstappen at the counter.

“So, who do you think has him?” Verstappen asked.

Jenson just shook his head and shrugged. He had no idea. “Whoever had Lewis, I guess.”

It all came back to Lewis. Of course it did…

“And you do not know who that is?” Verstappen asked.

Jenson shook his head. “I don’t deal with that kind of thing. I just run a coffee shop.”

“Of course,” Verstappen said. “Nothing to do with you.”

“I don’t do that kind of thing anymore,” Jenson said, seriously. Verstappen _knew_ that. Jenson had told him enough times.

Verstappen didn’t say anything, nodding to himself and waiting for Jenson to carry on. He hadn’t agreed to help yet and, now, Jenson wasn’t sure if he wanted him to or something. He just wanted Nico back safe.

As if on cue, the still unlocked doors of the coffee shop swung open and Nico, looking like he’d been dragged through hell, entered, Lewis Hamilton following close behind. Nico’s eyes immediately fell on Verstappen.

“What’s he doing here?”


	25. In which Verstappen causes problems and there's a break in...

 

“There is a face I have not seen in a long time,” Verstappen said, standing.

Nico hadn’t moved from the entrance to the shop, Lewis hovering behind him and trying to work out what Nico had gotten himself into. Verstappen had a small smile on his face as he clasped his hands together.

“You look a lot older than when I last saw you,” he said. Nico noticed that Verstappen didn’t look much different to when they’d last met, though Nico had been too young to remember much of that. Too young and too scared. “It’s a shame you haven’t matured much,” Verstappen added.

“Get out,” Nico said. He needed Jos Verstappen gone. There was no way they were having any conversation, definitely not one Nico wasn’t prepared for. He needed Jenson to tell him what was going on but he did not need Verstappen finding out anything about him and even the simple demand of “what the fuck is going on” would probably give something away that Nico would rather keep secret. “Now.”

“Now, now, Nico,” Verstappen scolded. “Räikkönen was a lot more polite than this.”

Nico tried to stop the surprise showing on his face, but it was clear that hadn’t worked when Verstappen’s smirk grew.

“You didn’t know Räikkönen had come to speak to me?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Get out,” Nico said again, trying to keep some authority in his voice.

Verstappen held up his hands in a mock surrender, brushing shoulders with Nico as he passed to leave.

“You’re a lot like your father,” he said, hand on the door. “Has anybody ever told you that?”

 

Hanna was exhausted by the time Emily had finally decided she was going to sleep. After creeping out of the bedroom, preying this was the final time that night she was going to have to, Hanna flopped down on her own bed. She knew it wouldn’t be long until sleep took her if she didn’t move soon, but that didn’t sound like an entirely bad thing, and there was no motivation to sit up at all.

Raffaela had seemed quite pleased when she left Kimi’s, Hanna thought. She hadn’t wanted to inquire too much about what had been said, knowing it must have been something Raffaela couldn’t want her to hear if she had made Hanna leave. But Raffaela definitely seemed a lot more confident in the plan to get her son back than she had been before the meeting.

It felt like the first useful thing Hanna had done in a long time. Definitely since before she fell pregnant. For once, she wasn’t the useless friend who always needed help. She was the one actually _doing_ the helping. It felt good to be in that position.

Hanna wriggled over to the side of the bed, taking the pyjamas she hadn’t gotten around to putting in the draw and getting ready for bed. She wondered what Raffaela’s little boy would be like. She knew her friend was a little worried about him settling down, but they could both work on that and Hanna was sure the little boy would love Raffaela in no time.

 

“Nico?” Jenson asked, uncertainly.

“Why is he here?” Nico asked, trying to remain calm. He knew Lewis was still stood behind him and it had been hard enough to convince Lewis to let him go. He needed the Brit to think he was in control when the truth was he couldn’t be much further out of it.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Jenson said. He knew now he’d done the wrong thing but it was too late to change that.

“What?”

“You were missing,” Jenson said. “You were gone hours. I didn’t know what to do. I thought you needed help.”

“And you thought Verstappen would help me?” Nico asked. He shook his head. This was going to have to wait. “Come on, Lewis,” he said, spinning on his heel and heading back out of the café.

“Nico, wait,” Jenson said, hurrying out from behind the counter.

“I will talk to you later,” Nico promised, holding the door open for Lewis to go through. “I need to deal with this first.”

“Do you need any help?” Jenson asked, stopping half way across the room.

“I can deal with this myself,” Nico said, even though he knew he wasn’t convincing either of them. “I’ll see you later.”

Lewis was already making his way to the car he had brought Nico here in, Jenson having taken Nico’s. He waited at the car for Nico to join him before getting into the driver’s seat, watching the way Nico hobbled a little after his beating. He just hoped it had been enough.

“Where are we going?” he asked, once Nico had sat down beside him.

“Back to ours,” Nico said. “You need to keep your head down if you’re going to stay in Elevency. More than you were before. Kimi will be looking for you, if what you told me is true. And look how easily I found you.”

“I was hiding for months, Nico,” Lewis pointed out. After all this time, it felt weird to be back in this part of Elevency, sitting next to Nico. It was almost like old times.

“Yes, but I had other things to deal with too,” Nico lied.

“Like that?” Lewis asked, nodding back the way they had come to indicate what had happened in the coffee shop. He didn’t recognise the man who had been there, but clearly Nico had. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Leave it Lewis,” Nico warned. He knew he shouldn’t let the Brit get to him but it was just so easy.

“Look, we’re back to old times already,” Lewis joked. “So, what’s the plan? I’ll just keep my head down and wait for you to sort everything out?”

“Pretty much,” Nico said. He didn’t have a plan yet, but that would come when he’d spoken to Kevin. But they were going to strike against Räikkönen, as soon as possible. If he wanted a fight, he could have one, and Nico wasn’t going to sit back and let him think he was winning.

 

Rob was woken by a loud bang, almost falling out of bed. After half a second of panicking, he realised it was probably just Felipinho trying to “creep” into the bedroom. Which would have been a reasonable explanation if the bedroom door was open, but it wasn’t.

There was another bang and Rob realised it came from down the stairs.

“Felipe?” Rob hissed, trying to wake his boyfriend, but that was an impossible task. “Felipe wake up.”

There was somebody down stairs. After the first kidnapping, Rob had been pretty tight on security, but that had been getting slacker and slacker recently. He’d left Felipe to lock up the night before and, on second thoughts, that might not have been the best of ideas.

Calm down. There was quite possibly a very reasonable explanation for this. Rob checked the alarm clock, surprised to find it was already six o’clock in the morning. Maybe it was just Felipinho getting up early?

A third bang made Rob jump again but this time light flooded into the room and Felipinho raced inside.

“Rob,” he hissed in a stage whisper. “Rob, I think there’s someone down the stairs.”

Or maybe not.

“Alright,” Rob said, his heart thumping in his chest. At least if Felipinho was here, he hadn’t been taken. As stupid as it sounded, Rob didn’t really care what they were looking for as long as everyone he cared about stayed here.

Rob lifted Felipinho into the bed and stood, wrapping the child up.

“You stay here and look after Daddy, ok?”

“Why isn’t he awake?” Felipinho asked, prodding his father in the back.

“Because he’s a lazy git,” Rob said, looking around the room for something to arm himself with. There wasn’t really a wide variety of weapons.

“I heard that,” Felipe mumbled, making Felipinho giggle.

Rob eventually settled on the “extra” plank of wood that leaned up against the wardrobe, left over from when they’d made up the flat pack furniture and probably the reason why the wardrobe tilted so much.

“Wait here,” he said, kissing Felipe on the forehead before heading down the stairs. About half way up, Rob hit a creaking step and moments later there was another bang from down the stairs. Someone raced down the hallway, the burglar’s face covered, and out of the house. Rob dropped the plank of wood but, by the time he had run out of the house, the burglar had disappeared.

“Fuck.”

Rob hurried back into the house, quickly going through the rooms to check there was nobody else hiding and to see what the burglar had taken, but there didn’t seem to be anything missing.

“It’s alright!” he called up the stairs once he was sure there was nobody else here.

“Should I call the police?” Felipe asked, carrying Felipinho down the stairs.

“No,” Rob said. The police were useless and there would be no point in calling them. “I’ll speak to Räikkönen about it later. They don’t seem to have taken anything.” He sighed and looked again around the hallway. The lock on the door was going to need fixing. “Did you put the chain on the door last night?”

Felipe’s face fell and he looked between the untouched chain and Rob. “Sorry.”

Rob mentally groaned but he shook his head. There was no point getting Felipe upset over this. “No, it’s fine.” Suddenly, a perfect idea hit Rob and he had to stop himself grinning at it. Every cloud had a silver lining, and it looked like he had just found this one’s. “I’ll call a locksmith, though. Why don’t you get this one some breakfast?”

He smiled at Felipinho, but the little boy didn’t smile back.

“What’s wrong?” Rob asked, gently.

“Is the robber gone?” Felipinho asked, quietly.

“Yes, the robber’s gone,” Rob said.

“Rob scared it away,” Felipe said. “And now there is nothing to worry about. Why don’t you tell me what you want for breakfast?”


	26. In which Dany tries to help, Nico aches, and Kimi does as he's told

It hadn’t been easy, but Rob had managed to convince Felipe that he needed to stay in for the locksmith whilst he took Felipinho to school. Felipinho hadn’t complained much about the arrangement, but Felipe had given Rob his best puppy dog look to try to convince Rob that he could take Felipinho to school whilst Rob waited in. In the end, Rob had played dirty and asked Felipinho who he would prefer, knowing what the answer would be.

“Alright,” Rob said, once they were sat in the car. “Remember the man we had to go and see before? The one who asked you about the bad man?”

“Did he find him?” Felipinho asked.

“Not yet, no,” Rob said. “He needs to ask you some more questions though.”

“Why?” Felipinho asked.

“I don’t know mate,” Rob said. He was interested in hearing what Kimi wanted with Felipinho too, but he knew better than to not go.

“Are we going to go there instead of school?” Felipinho asked.

“Yep.”

“But the teacher will be cross with me if I’m late _again_ ,” Felipinho said. This would be the second day in a row he was late.

“It’s ok, I sorted it out with your teacher, mate,” Rob said, quickly. Hopefully this wouldn’t take long and then they could all get back to normal.

 

Nico had spent the night on the sofa whilst Lewis took the bed. He woke up earlier than he would have liked to with half a dozen missed calls from Jenson. Really, he knew he should have let his boyfriend know he wouldn’t be going home that night, but he had still been a little angry when he’d fallen asleep the night before. After sending a quick message to let Jenson know that he was alright and he would be coming round later, Nico went to the kitchen, hoping he had left enough coffee in here.

He’d not _officially_ moved into Jenson’s, but it was rare he wasn’t there now. Fortunately, there was still half a pot of coffee granules in the kitchen, enough for the morning. By the time he’d made his drink, Lewis was down stairs.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like shit,” Nico admitted. He wasn’t sure if it was all from the beating the day before or if sleeping on the sofa had contributed to that too.

“I said you could have the bed,” Lewis said.

“And let you sneak out whilst I was sleeping?” Nico said, pausing to sip his coffee. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I could have slipped out whilst you were making that,” Lewis said, pointing to the coffee. He got a scowl for his efforts. “Why would I _slip out_ anyway? I _chose_ to be here.”

He had a point with that one. Nico didn’t bother arguing with him, knowing he wasn’t going to win. Lewis had helped him out of the mess he had been in, and that had been his own choice. If he didn’t want to be here, he wouldn’t be. Nico took another gulp of coffee and sat down on the sofa, waiting for Lewis to sit down too.

“You are going to have to stay here until we can find somewhere else,” Nico said. “If Kimi finds out it was you who hit Sebastian, or if whoever you were working for finds you, you are going to be in trouble. We’ll find somewhere safer for you, Lewis, I promise, but right now there isn’t anywhere.”

Nico knew how much Lewis was risking just by being here, let alone sharing intelligence. It more than made up for everything he’d done.

“Alright,” Lewis said. He didn’t seem as worried as Nico thought he would be. “What do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, and we’ll go from there.”

 

Kimi didn’t like this. He didn’t like it one bit, but if it protected Sebastian and his family, he was going to have to do it. Getting the little boy’s passport hadn’t been easy. Kimi hadn’t even been entirely sure he would have one, but he’d managed to find it eventually, stuffed down the back of a draw with the boy’s father’s. Breaking and entering wasn’t his speciality, and he was certain he could have done that morning a lot smoother, but it didn’t matter now. He just had to hope Rob suspected nothing.

It looked like he hadn’t.

Rob knocked on Kimi’s door at exactly ten to nine and Kimi didn’t hesitate to answer, letting Rob lead Felipinho into his house. The child had his eyes on the floor as he gripped onto Rob’s hand tightly. He didn’t want to be here again.

“Would you like something to drink?” Kimi asked once Rob had taken a seat.

“I’d rather you just told us what this was about,” Rob said, honestly. Felipinho sat beside him, curled up into Rob’s side and waiting for Kimi to ask him questions again. He’d told the man everything he could remember about the bad man, but Rob said he wanted to know some other things. Felipinho didn’t _know_ any other things, and he hoped he wasn’t going to be put in prison for not knowing them.

“I’ll get you some tea,” Kimi said, ignoring Rob. He crouched down in front of Felipinho, trying to get the child to look at him. “And what do you want to drink?”

Felipinho looked up at Rob, waiting for Rob to answer for him, but Rob didn’t say anything.

“Do you have any orange juice?” Felipinho asked quietly.

“You want some?” Kimi asked. “I’ll go and get it right now.”

He smiled as he stood, but Felipinho still looked scared to death.

“You are not in trouble,” Kimi said. “I just need to ask you some more things, that is all.”

Felipinho just moved closer to Rob, peaking out at Kimi whilst he tried to hide himself. Kimi turned his smile to Rob, but the parent didn’t seem to have the time for that either. Kimi gave up trying to settle the pair of them, going into the kitchen to make the drinks up.

“It will be ok,” Rob said, hugging Felipinho to him. “I bet he just wants to make extra super duper sure he has the right person so the bad man doesn’t escape.”

“And then he will put the bad man in prison?” Felipinho asked.

“Yep.”

“Rob?” Felipinho said, slowly.

“Yes,” Robs said, always a little nervous when Felipinho said his name like that, scared of the question that was going to come next.

“Can we go and see Daddy’s friend soon,” Felipinho asked. “He was really nice.”

“Maybe,” Rob lied, not noticing it himself when he pulled Felipinho a little closer to him. “We’ll have to find out what he’s doing though. He might be very busy. You know lots of grown ups are.”

Felipinho nodded, apparently happy with the answer. Rob gulped, running a hand through Felipinho’s hair gently. Hopefully this would be the last time Fernando was brought up around the youngster. Felipinho would easily forget about him if he weren’t brought up again.

“Here you are,” Kimi said, handing both Rob and Felipinho drinks. Rob sipped at his tea a little, trying to calm his nerves. Felipinho had almost drained his glass before Kimi had even stood. “I take it you are thirsty then,” Kimi said, smiling. “I just need to get some things from the office. I will not be long.”

Kimi left the two of them with their drinks, closing the living room door behind him. It wouldn’t take long for the drugs to come into effect and the plan after that would be easy enough.

 

Dany was beginning to worry about Dan. He hadn’t been volunteering at the Halfway Houses much, and he hadn’t been to see Sebastian since his friend had woken up. In fact, Dan had barely left the house and Dany was beginning to think he might be ill, but he didn’t look it.

Today, he was determined to get Dan out of the house, even if it was just for a short walk around the block, he needed to get some fresh air.

Dan was in the living room with a mug of coffee when Dany had finished getting ready. It was becoming the norm now and it was a little worrying.

“Come on,” Dany said, standing in front of his friend.

“Leave it, Dany,” Dan said, quietly, not even looking up at him.

“No,” Dany said. “You are not sitting here today.”

“Don’t you have to go to work?” Dan asked through gritted teeth. He just wanted to be left alone. Why was that too much to ask?

“Nope,” Dany said. “Took the day off. Especially for you. Now come on.”

Dany took the mug out of Dan’s hand and placed it on the table before pulling the Australian out of his seat. Dan stank, but if Dany let him slip off to the shower, he’d never get him out of the house. Dan following behind like a tantrum throwing two year old, Dany crossed the room to the front door, but Dan refused to put on his shoes.

“Leave me alone.”

“No,” Dany said. “Do not make me put on your shoes. I think I might die if I go near your feet.”

“Maybe you should just leave me here then,” Dan suggested, bitterly.

“Or we go out without your shoes at all,” Dany suggested. “But I think it is raining, so I would not recommend it.”

“Fine,” Dan snapped, pulling his hand out of Dany’s and putting his shoes on. “Happy now?”

“A little,” Dany said, dragging Dan out of the door.

 

Kimi knew it was wrong, but he didn’t have much choice. He went back into the living room, preying the drugs had worked right. It had been enough to keep Rob out for a couple of hours, and for the child to be safely away with his mother before he woke up.

The two of them looked like they were sleeping peacefully, Felipinho curled up against Rob a little. Carefully, even though Kimi knew neither of them would wake, he pulled the child away from his adoptive father and out of the house.

He’d come back for Rob later. Drive him somewhere and leave him there until the drugs wore off. Kimi knew Rob would probably figure out what had happened, but it would be too late by then.


End file.
